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\ 










































« 



























» 


















- 


















































































Copr. 1911, J. C. W. Co. NORTH AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS 

1 . Violet. 2 Wake robin. 3 Fringed gentian. 4. Day lily. 5. Smooth rose. 6. Lady’s slipper. 7 Marcl 
.mangold. S. Jack in the pulpit. 9. Phlox. <• iuaici 















COMPLETE AUTHORITATIVE PRACTICAL 


WINSTON’S= 


CUMULATIVE 

Patents Nos. 916034, 91603S, 916036 

ENCYCLOPEDIA 

A COMPREHENSIVE 
REFERENCE BOOK 

Editor-in-Chief 

CHARLES MORRIS 

Litterateur , Historian and Encyclopedist 

Author of “Civilization, an Historical Review of Its 
Elements,” “The Aryan Race,” “Manual of Classical 
Literature,” “Man and His Ancestors,” “Famous Men 
and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century,” and 
numerous other works. Editor of “Twentieth Cen¬ 
tury Encyclopedia,” 4 Biographical Dictionary,” 

“Famous Orators of the World,” “Half Hours with 
the Best American Authors,” etc., etc. Member of 
the “Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,” 

“Geographical Society of Philadelphia,” “Natural His¬ 
tory Society,” and “Society for Psychical Research.” 

-Assisted by- 

A CORPS OF CONTRIBUTORS 

Authorities on Special Subjects 

> 

Tin XTen iDolumes 

ILLUSTRATED WITH COLORED PLATES 
MAPS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS 


THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 

Philadelphia, Pa. Chicago, III. 
















► 




PATENTED 

Under Letters Patent Nos. 916034, 916035, 916036 
Copyright, 1912 
The John C. Winston Co. 


CAUTION 

The entire Contents and Illustrations in this work 
are protected by copyright, and the Cumulative 
System is protected by patent rights. All persons 
are warned not to use any portion of the work or 
make use of the Cumulative System. 


> 

> > 

*<>•> 


1 0 /eLJ, 

CCI.A314762 



PREFACE 


T HE range of human knowledge in our days has grown enormously. Added to 
by travel, discovery, invention and scientific investigation, its scope has passed 
vastly beyond that of past times and it is still increasing with accelerating rap- ! 
idity. The period in which a man could seek to make all knowledge his field, as in ' 
the days of Aristotle, now belongs to the distant past, and the most ardent student of 
our day fails to gain an exhaustive grasp of more than one branch on the great tree of 
knowledge. The vast majority fall far below this level and are obliged to be content 
with a general acquaintance with what is going on in the world of nature, art and 
science. 

This is the function of an encyclopedia: to gather up the multitudinous bits of 
information of interest to mankind and put them in shape to be digested by the ordi¬ 
nary searcher after knowledge. Even the profound students of our day feel the neces¬ 
sity of such a compendium of facts, since there are thousands of items outside their 
chosen fields of study with which they are unfamiliar and which it is important to know. 
An encyclopedia is like a ship deeply freighted with many varied items adapted to 
everyday needs. It is at once a gazetteer, a biographical dictionary, and a compendium 
of the facts of science, philosophy and all the fields of intellectual activity, alike those 
of the past and those of recent development, making the world its province, and all 
knowledge its scope. It is its object to gather in the material facts on every subject, 
while omitting the non-essentials, and to give the reader a lucid and concise statement 
which will supply him with a fair and ordinarily sufficient digest of every subject 
sought. 

This is the day of the encyclopedia. Readers want facts of every kind boiled 
down and bottled up for ready use, clearly stated, conveniently arranged, and giving 
without needless detail just the things that busy men and women want to know. They 
also want what they do not get in the ordinary encyclopedia, a light, handy, inexpen¬ 
sive work, instead of a long series of bulky and costly volumes, twenty or thirty in 
number and large and heavy to handle, ponderous in size, while containing no more 
information than, with careful editing, can be compressed into a work of the size and 
convenience here offered to the inquiring reader. 

WINSTON’S CUMULATIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA, in fact, fills a long-felt want 
of the reading public. It occupies a field of its own, and is without a rival in its peculiar 
combination of conciseness with completeness. It must not be imagined that moderate 
dimensions have been gained by incomplete treatment and a brevity of subjects. An 
analysis of this work will prove the contrary. It covers nearly 40,000 subjects, giving 
under each subject the points that are most important to know. It has been the aim 
of the editors of this work to include every subject that properly comes within the 
scope of an encyclopedia, not those words the proper place for which is in a dictionary, 
nor those recondite subjects that appeal merely to the learned specialist and belong 
only to the pages of purely technical volumes. This work is intended, not for the 


PREFACE 


few learned professors, but for the host of men, women and children who are not in¬ 
terested in exhaustive treatises, but are seeking to gain some fair idea about the multi¬ 
tude of everyday subjects, the topics that arise in ordinary conversation or that they 
meet with in their reading, and about which they desire some definite and satisfactory 
information. An encyclopedia, in short, should be a library in a few volumes, a cabinet 
containing a multitude of interesting subjects, just the ones about which the busy 
man is likely to desire to find some ready and reliable statement. As such it must 
touch the distinctive and characteristic features of every subject, handling these broadly 
and not seeking to penetrate their depths of minor detail. Such has been the thought 
kept constantly in view in the preparation of these volumes. 

We have spoken of some of the distinctive features of this work. Now let us 
speak of the most distinctive, that which removes it from the ordinary category of 
such works and puts it in a class by itself. We refer to its cumulative method of add¬ 
ing new matter, a characteristic of such value and importance that we feel called upon 
to speak of it at some length in the preface. It is a notorious fact that encyclopedias, 
like men, have the unfortunate habit of growing old, but are not like men in keeping 
up with the world’s movements. They are not a year on the market before they be¬ 
come incomplete. Something of wide interest and importance has happened that 
finds no place in their pages. 

This is a weakness to which all the ordinary encyclopedias are subject. People 
die, but are still recorded in their pages as living; city and town populations change 
as new censuses are made, but the old figures stare out from the page; the world’s 
history goes on, but its latest details are not to be found in the printed work; the 
platoon of discoverers make new explorations, such as the north and south poles, for 
instance, but the facts learned are still stated to be unknown, or not mentioned at 
all. The same thing is true of the arts, sciences and all the elements of human knowl¬ 
edge. New facts are learned, but the row of antiquated books to which you refer for 
a statement of these facts contains no mention of them. Yet, often enough the new 
facts are more important than the old. The new truth makes the old truth untrue. 
The work of reference to which you apply for information about the living present 
speaks to you only of the past. This is a defect to which all works of reference have 
hitherto been subject, and one which various methods have been devised to overcome. 
Hitherto all those methods have practically proved failures from their lack of simplicity, 
convenience, inexpensiveness, or some other essential factor. 

The present work disposes of this difficulty in an easy and admirable manner, 
and enables its owner to keep it up-to-date without expense and with no inconvenience 
or trouble. The Cumulative system, used exclusively in our work, is a patented pro¬ 
cess by which provision is made to insert pages of new material from time to time, 
thus keeping the encyclopedia steadily fresh and new, without need of loosening the 
printed pages, without injury to the form, binding, or shape of the volumes, and with¬ 
out the use of screws, bolts, nuts, springs, clamps, or other annoying mechanical con¬ 
trivances—in short, a system so simple and perfect that a child can operate it. 

An interesting feature to buyers of the work is that this new feature entails no 
expense. The yearly revision or cumulative sheets, printed in page form, are fur¬ 
nished free to all purchasers of the work, ready to put in their appropriate place with- 





PREFACE 


out increasing the bulk of the volumes. These sheets are prepared by the permanent 
Editorial Staff maintained for the purpose of constantly revising and adding to the 
subject matter, so that it shall always cover the latest developments in all fields of the 
world’s activity and achievement, thus keeping the encyclopedia in every respect 
up to date. 

This is a feature which we desire to call especially to the attention of readers. 
Through its operation they can feel confident that the work in their hands will be 
kept constantly in touch with passing events, and this without cost, and with no effort 
other than that of inserting the sheets in their proper places. These facts are here 
dwelt upon as of interest and importance and as rendering Winston’s Cumulative 
Encyclopedia unique in character, a work without a rival in its distinguishing features 
of compactness and completeness. 



THE CUMULATIVE SYSTEM 

HOW IT IS USED 

The following explanation, with the accompanying illustrations, will give a clear 
idea of how the Cumulative system is employed. 

Following each letter of the alphabet, a number of blank, perforated pages are 
bound into the book. The perforation of these pages is so arranged that when they 
are torn out they will leave alternate short and long stubs in the binding of the book. 
Illustration A shows a book with two of the blank, perforated pages torn out, leaving 
a short stub followed by a long stub. 

Simple and Efficient —When revisions are to be inserted, two of the blank, 
perforated pages are torn out, as shown in Illustration A. Then the first leaf of new 
material is tipped on the front of the long stub just above the short stub. (See Illus¬ 
tration B.) You have then equalized the thickness of the sheet torn from the short 
stub. 

The next leaf of new material is then tipped on the back of the leaf first inserted, 
just above the edge of the long stub. (Illustration C.) You have then equalized the 
thickness of the blank, perforated page torn from the long stub, and therefore the form 
of the book has been kept exactly the same as it was before the blank, perforated pages 
were taken out and the pages of new material added. 

In this manner the yearly revision pages are inserted in their several places, and 
when the operation is completed your encyclopedia has been advanced a year in its 
freshness, and is just as late and thorough as a newly published work. 

The leaves of new material which will be sent you from year to year, in the Free 
Revision Service which we furnish to each subscriber, will be of the proper size to insert 
in the books. 

This “Cumulative” system is protected under Letters Patent Nos. 916034, 916035 
and 916036, and can only be used in Winston’s Cumulative Encyclopedia. 


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★ Coupons for each year’s revision inserts must be mailed 
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date and not later than March 1st of the following year. 

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complied with. 

★ EACH COUPON MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY TEN CENTS 

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date and not later than March 1st of the following year. 

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DIAGRAM A. 
Showing two of the 
blank, perforated 
pages torn out, leav¬ 
ing a short stub 
followed by a long 
one. 


LONG STUB 
SHORT STUB 


FIRST 


INSERT PAGE 

N. 


SHORT- \ 


STUB^ 

■ LONG STUB 

i- 





DIAGRAM B. 

Showing how the first sheet of 
added material is tipped on the 
front of the long stub. The 
small cut shows how it 
equalizes the thickness of 
the blank, perforated 
sheet torn from the 
short stub. 


FIRST / SECOND 
INSERT PAGE (INSERT PAGE 

k-LONGSTUB 


DIAGRAM C. 

Showing how the second sheet of added 
material is tipped on the back of the 
first page. The small cut shows 
how this second sheet equalizes 
the thickness of the blank, 
perforated sheet torn from 






















KEY TO THE PRONUNCIATION. 


The pronunciation of the words that form the titles of the articles is indicated 
in two ways: 1st, By re-writing the word in a different form and according to a 
simple system of transliteration. 2d, By marking the syllable on which the chief 
accent falls. Entries which simply have their accentuation marked are English or 
foreign words that present little difficulty, and in regard to which readers can hardly 
go far wrong. A great many of the entries, however, cannot be treated in this way, 
but must have their pronunciation represented by a uniform series of symbols, so 
that it shall be unmistakable, and in almost all cases, including most of those of 
easy pronunciation, this has been done. In doing this the same letter or combina¬ 
tion of letters is made use of to represent the same sound, no matter by what letter 
or letters the sound may be represented in the word whose pronunciation is shown. 
The key to the pronunciation by this means is greatly simplified, the reader having 
only to remember one character for each sound. Sounds and letters, it may be 
remarked, are often very different things. In the English language there are over 
forty sounds, while in the English alphabet there are only twenty-six letters to 
represent them. Our alphabet is, therefore, very far from being adequate to the 
duties required of it, and still more inadequate to represent the various sounds of 
foreign languages. It will be observed that French words, also those of Belgian 
towns and of places in Switzerland where French is spoken, are given without 
accent marks. This is due to the fact that in French words every syllable is 
accented. In pronouncing them it is necessary to give stress to each syllable, with 
the distinction that the final syllable is spoken with a somewhat stronger stress 
than the others. In Chinese words each seeming syllable is really a separate word 
and needs to be accented. Only in cases where French and Chinese words have 
been anglicized in pronunciation is the English method of accenting employed in 
this work. 

The most typical vowel sounds (including dipthongs) are as shown in the 
following list, which gives also the characters that are used in the Cyclopedia to 
show their pronunciation, most of these being distinguished by diacritical marks. ' 


a, as in fate, or in bare, 
it, as in alms, Fr. dme, Ger. Balm—& 
of Indian names. 

k, the same sound short or medium, as 
in Fr. bal, Ger. Mann, 
a, as in fat. 
a, as in fall. 

a, obscure, as in rural, similar to u in 
bat, e in her: common in Indian 
names. 

e, as in me=i in machine, 
e, as in met. 
e, as in her. 

i, as in pine, or as ei in Ger. Mein, 
i, as in pin, also used for the short 
sound corresponding to e, as in 
French and Italian words. 


eu, a long sound as in Fr. jeune,= 
Ger. long 6, as in Sohne, Gothe 
(Goethe). 

eu, corresponding sound short or medi¬ 
um, as in Fr. pew = Ger. 6 short, 
o, as in note, moan, 
o, as in not, soft—that is, short or medium, 
b, as in move, two. 
u, as in tube. 

u, as in tab: similar to e and also to a. 
V}, as in ball. 

u, as in Sc ajbane=Fr. u as in d d, 
Ger. ii long as in griin, Biihne. 
u, the corresponding short or medium 
sound, as in Fr. bat, Ger. Mailer, 
oi, as in oil. 

ou, as in poand ; or as au in Ger. Haas. 


Of the consonants , b, d, f, h, j, k, 1, m, n, ng, p, sh, t, v, z, always have their 
common English sounds, when used to transliterate foreign words. The letter c 
is not used by itself in re-writing for pronunciation, s or k being respectively used 
instead. The only consonantal symbols, therefore, that require explanation are the 
following. 


ch is always as in rich, 
d, nearly as th in tins = Sp. d in 
Madrid, etc. 

g is always hard, as in go. 
h represents the guttural in Scotch 
loch, Ger. nacTi, also other similar 
gutturals. 

n, Fr. nasal n as in boa. 
r represents both English r, and r in 
foreign words, in which it is gen¬ 


erally much more strongly trilled, 
s, always as in so. 
th, as th in thin, 
th, as th in this. 

w always consonantal, as in we. 
x = ks, which are used instead, 
y always consonantal, as in ye a (Fr. 

ligne would be re-written lenv). 
zh, as s in pleasure = Fr. j. 





! / 


CUMULATIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA 

VOLUME I 


WINSTON’S 


A the first letter in almost all alphabets. 

Most modern languages, as French, 
Italian, German, have only one sound 
for a, namely, the sound which is heard 
in father pronounced short or long; in 
English this letter is made to represent 
seven sounds, as in the words father, mat, 
mate, mare, many, hall, what, besides 
being used in such digraphs as ea in 
heat, oa, in boat. —A, in music, is the 
sixth note in the diatonic scale of C, and 
stands when in perfect tune to the latter 
note in the ratio of 3/5 to 1. The second 
string of the violin is tuned to this note. 
A 1 a symbol attached to vessels of the 
highest class in Lloyd’s register of 
shipping, A referring to the hull of the 
vessel, while 1 intimates the sufficiency of 
the rigging and whole equipment. Iron 
vessels are classed A1 with a numeral 
prefixed, as 100 Al, 90 Al, the numeral 
denoting that they, are built respectively 
according to certain specifications. 

Ar» (a; from old German aha; allied 
‘ n,< * to Latin aqua, water), the name of 
a great many streams of central and 
northern Europe. 

Aachen (a'7ien). See Aix-la-Chapelle. 

A dlhnro* (ol'borft ; ‘eel-town’), a sea- 
iiaiDOrg port 0 f Denmark. Pop. 

31,462. 

A alacund (ol'sound; ‘eel sound ), a 
xidicauiiu seaport of Norway, with 
large fisheries and an extensive trade. 
Pop. 11,672. 

A all Pacha (a'le pa-sha), grand 
xctMld v i z i er 0 f Turkey, was 

born in 1815 ; died in 1871. He served 
as grand vizier or prime minister four 
terms, and was prominent as a diploma¬ 
tist and successful as minister of foreign 
affairs. He was firm but moderate in his 
administration of office. 

Aar (ar), the name of several Euro- 
■ n ‘ d " L pean rivers, of which the chief 
(160 miles long) is a tributary of the 
Rhine, next to it and the Rhone the long¬ 
est river in Switzerland. It has its origin 
from the upper and lower glaciers of the 
Aar in the Bernese Alps. On it are Inter¬ 


laken, Thun, Bern, Solothurn and Aarau, 
to which, as to the canton of Aargau, it 
gives its name. 

A a ran (a'rou), a well-built and finely 
u situated town in Switzerland, 
capital of canton Aargau, on the river 
Aar. Pop. 7995. 

AarHvark (ard'vark; earth-pig), a 
aaiuva burrowing insectivorous 
animal of South Africa, Orycterdpus 



Aardvark (Orycterdpus capensis ). 
capensis, order Edentata, having affinities 
with the ant-eaters and armadillos 
Called also ground-hog and Cape pig. 
Aflrdwolf (ard'wulf; earth-wolf ; 
AdlUWUli Proteles cristatus). a 
carnivorous burrowing animal of South 
Africa, allied to the hyenas and civets. 
Feeds on carrion, small mammals, insects, 
etc. 

An reran (ar'gou), or Argovie (ar'go- 
xxaigau a nor thern canton of 

Switzerland; area, 543 square miles; 
hilly, well wooded, abundantly watered 
by the Aar and its tributaries, and well 
cultivated. It formed part of the canton 
Bern till 1798. Pop. 206,498, of whom 
more than half are Protestants. German 
is almost universally spoken. Capital, 
Aarau. 

Aa-rhnnc (or'hos), a seaport and an- 
Xldinuus> dent town of Denma rk, on 

the east coast of Jutland; has a fine 
Gothic cathedral, a good harbor, consid¬ 
erable trade and manufactures of woolens, 
gloves, hats, tobacco, etc. Pop. 51,909. 
Aarnn (a'ron), of the tribe of Levi, 
XLdiuii eldest son of Amram and Joch- 
ebed, and brother and assistant of 




Aaron’s Beard 


Abatement 


Moses. At Sinai, when the people be¬ 
came impatient at the long-continued ab¬ 
sence of Moses, he complied with their 
request in making a golden calf, and 
thus became involved with them in the 
guilt of gross idolatry. The office of high- 
priest, which he first filled, was made 
hereditary in his family. He died at 
Mount Hor at the age of 123, and was 
succeeded by his son Eleazar. 

Aaron’s Beard. ® 

flax. 

Aaron’s Rod. f^, le P olden ' rod and 

A flcvar (os'var), a group of small 
islands off the Norwegian 
coast, under the Arctic Circle, where 
there is an important December herring- 
fishery. 

Aavnm (av'o-ra), the fruit of a palm- 
tree, of the West Indies and 
Africa. It is of the size of a hen’s egg, 
and included with several others in a 
hard shell. The fruit contains a nut 
resembling an almond, but very astrin¬ 
gent. 

A1) the eleventh month of the Jewish 
’ civil, the fifth of the ecclesiastical, 
year—part of July and part of August. 
Ababde ( a b _a b'de), a tribe of Bed¬ 
ouins dwelling in the region 

between Kosseir and Derr. Many of 

them have settled in Upper Egypt, but 

most of these retain the Bedouin habits. 
Ababdeh (ab-ab'de), a nomadic 
African race inhabiting 

Upper Egypt and part of Nubia, between 
the Nile and the Red Sea, of Hamitic 
stock, and thus akin in race to the an¬ 
cient Egyptians; dark brown in color; 
Mohammedans in religion. 

Abara (ab'a-ka). or Manila Hemp, 
a strong fibre yielded by the 
leaf-stalks of a kind of plantain (Musa 
textilis ), which grows in the Indian 
Archipelago, and is cultivated in the Phil¬ 
ippines. The outer fibres of the leaf¬ 
stalks are made into strong and durable 
ropes, the inner into various fine fabrics. 
Ab'aCO G reat aQ d Little, two islands 
of the Bahamas group. 
Ab'aCUS, a katin term applied to an 
’ apparatus used in elementary 



oo - 

-ooooo-ooo- 



5oooooo— 


OOOOO- 

-00000-1 




Abacus for Calculations, 
schools for facilitating arithmetical 


operations, consisting of a number of 
parallel cords or wires, upon which balls 
or beads are strung, the uppermost wire 
being appropriated to 
units, the next to 
tents, etc. In classic 
architecture it de¬ 
notes the tablet form¬ 
ing the upper mem¬ 
ber of a column, and 
supporting the entab¬ 
lature. In Gothic Doric Capital—o, the 
architecture the up- Abacus, 

per member of a 
column from which the arch springs. 

AbarMnn (a-bad'un ; Heb. destruc- 
xxuauuuii don) the name giyen in 

Rev., ix, 11, as that of the angel of 
the bottomless pit, otherwise called Apoll- 
yon. 

AbaVanslr (&-b&-k&nsk'), a fortified 
xiDaKansK place in Siberia near the 

Upper Yenisei, founded by Peter the 
Great in 1707. 

Abalnn^ (ab-a-lo'ne), a name in 
rLUdiunc California for a g p ec ie S 0 f 

ear-shell (Haliotis) that furnishes 
mother-of-pearl. 

Ab ana, a river near Damascus. 

Abandonment ■ * 

term of marine in¬ 
surance. employed to designate the case 
where the party insured gives up his 
whole interest in the property to the in¬ 
surer, and claims as for a total loss. 

A barm (&'ba-no), a village of North 
Italy, 5 miles from Padua, 
famous for its mud-baths and warm 
springs. It claims to be the birthplace of 
Livy. Pop. (commune) about 4.000. 
Ab'ano D ’' L IETR0 * a celebrated Italian 
* physician, philosopher, and as¬ 
trologer, born at Abano in 1250, died at 
Padua in 1310. He studied at Padua, 
went to Constantinople to learn Greek, 
visited Paris and studied mathematics 
and medicine, and traveled in England 
and Scotland. He became professor of 
medicine at Padua, and wrote on this 
subject and on philosophy. 

Abarim (&-b4'rim), mountain range 
of Eastern Palestine, includ¬ 
ing Nebo, whence Moses is said to have 
viewed the Promised Land. 

Abatement (a-bat'ment), in law, 

has various uses. Abate¬ 
ment of nuisances is the remedy allowed 
to a person injured by a public or private 
nuisance, of destroying or removing it 
himself. A plea in abatement is brought 
forward by a defendant when he wishes 
to defeat or quash a particular action on 
some formal or technical ground. Abate- 











Abattis 


Abbey 


ment, in mercantile law, is an allowance, 
deduction, or discount made for prompt 
payment or other reason. 

AbattlS (ab'a-tis). Abatis, in mili¬ 
tary affairs, a mass of trees 
cut down and laid with their branches 
turned towards the enemy in such a way 
as to form a defence for troops stationed 
behind them. 

Ahnttmr (ab-at-war'), a French term 
21UdllUlI fQr a s i aughter _ house> now 

anglicized. The abattoirs of Paris were 
' instituted by Napoleon in 1807, and 
brought to completion in 1818. Such 
public slaughter-houses, provided with 
every sort of convenience, kept admirably 
clean, and with a plentiful supply of 
water, are now to be found in many large 
towns. They exist in all the large cities 
of the United States, and on a very large 
scale in the great meat-packing cities of 
the West, notably in Chicago. 

A Firmin (a-bo-ze), a French 
21 Ud Lj Protestant scholar, born in 
1679, died 1767. He lived chiefly at 
Geneva, but visited England and was 
highly esteemed by Newton, who con¬ 
sidered him not unfit to be judge between 
himself and Leibnitz in the quarrel as to 
the invention of the integral and differ¬ 
ential calculus. He left few writings. 
ARRarHp D ’ (ab-a-de), Antoine 
nuuauic, Thomson and Arnaud 

Michel, French travelers, born in Dublin 
in 1810 and 1815, respectively. They 
spent a number of years in Abyssinia, and 
published works throwing much light on 
that country; by Arnaud, Douse ans dans 
la Haute-Ethiopie: by Antoine, Gtodesie 
d'Ethiopie , etc. The elder died in 1897, 
the younger in 1893. 

ARRac T (ab'bas), the Great, Shah or 
nuuda x King of Persia, horn in 
1557, obtained the throne in 1586, and 
died in 1628. He obtained several victor- 
ies over the Turks and- TJsbek Tartars, 
and extended his rule until his dominions 
stretched from the Tigris to the. Indus. 
He is looked upon Jby the Persians as 
their greatest sovereign. 

ALhoo Mir 79 a Persian prince and 

ad oas ivnrza, soldier , son of the 

shah Feth Ali, .born 1783. died 1833. 
He reorganized his army on the European 
system and distinguished himself in the 
wars against Russia. 

ARRaccidpc (ab'as-sldz), the name of 
2iDDaSSl(ieb an Arabian dynasty 

which supplanted the Ommiades. It 
traced its descent from Abbas (born 
566, died 652) , uncle of Mohammed, and 
furnished thirty-seven caliphs to Bag¬ 
dad between 749 and 1258. Harun al 
Rashid was a member of this dynasty. 
See Caliphs. 


Abbate (db ' brtfl >;,. the t term 

corresponding to Abbe. 
AR'Rp Cleveland, meteorologist, born 
u uc > in New York 1828; graduated 
at College of City of New York in 1857; 
studied astronomy and meteorology, and 
as director of Cincinnati Observatory 
(1868-73) inaugurated the system of 
daily weather reports. This led the 
United States to take up similar work, 
under his supervision. He was meteor¬ 
ologist of the U. S. Signal Service 1871- 
91 ; after 1891 meteorologist of the 
Weather Bureau; also professor of 
meteorology of Columbian University. 
Published various meteorological treatises. 
Ahbe (ab-a), the French word for 
abbot, was, before the French 
revolution, the common title of all who 
had studied theology either with a view to 
become ordained clergymen or merely in 
the hope of obtaining some appointment or 
benefice, to which such study was consid¬ 
ered a preliminary requisite. They were 
marked out by their short, violet-colored 
robe, and formed an influential class in 
society, though often with little of the 
clerical in manners or character. They 
acted at times as chaplains or tutors in 
noble families or engaged in literary 
work or as college professors. 

Ahhpnlm+fl (a-be-o-koo'ta), capital 
2iDDeoKuta of the province of Egba> 

in Yoruba. 80 miles n. of Lagos. It is a 
town of West Africa composed of scat¬ 
tered and filthy lines of houses built of 
mud, and surrounded by a mud wall 17 
or 18 miles in circuit. Pop. 150,000. 
Ab'bess. ^ ee Abbey and Abbot. 

ARRpvrillp (ab-vel'), a town of France, 
2XU uc vine dep Somme . on the river 

Somme (which is here tidal), 25 miles 
n. w. of Amiens. It has a Gothic church 
(St. Wolfram) with magnificent west 
front in the Flamboyant style; manufac¬ 
tures of woolens, carpets, sugar^ etc., and 
considerable trade. Pop. (1906) 18,971. 
AbbeV ( a b'e),a monastery or relig- 
ious community of the highest 
class, governed by an abbot , assisted gen¬ 
erally by a prior, a subprior, and other 
subordinate functionaries; or, in the case 
of a female community, superintended by 
an abbess. An abbey invariably included 
a church. A priory differed from an 
abbey only in being scarcely so extensive 
an establishment, and was governed by a 
prior. In the English conventual cathe¬ 
dral establishments, as Canterbury. Nor¬ 
wich, Ely, etc., the archbishops or bishops 
held the abbot’s place, the immediate gov¬ 
ernor of the monastery being called a 
prior. Some priories sprang originally 
from the more important abbeys, and re- 



Abbey 


Abbot 


mained under the jurisdiction of the ab¬ 
bots ; but subsequently any real distinc¬ 
tion between abbeys and priories was 
lost. The greater abbeys formed most 
complete and extensive establishments, 
including not only the church and other 
buildings devoted to the monastic life 
and its daily requirements, such as the 
refectory or eating-room, the dormitories 
or sleeping-rooms, the room for social in¬ 
tercourse, the school for novices, the 
scribes’ cells, library, and so on ; but also 
workshops, storehouses, mills, cattle and 
poultry sheds, dwellings for artisans, 
laborers, and other servants, infirmary, 
guest-house, etc. Among the most famous 
abbeys on the continent of Europe were 
those of Cluny, Clairvaux, and Citeaux 
in France; St. Galle in Switzerland, and 


AKhnf (ab'ut), (ultimately from 
xiuuul g yr j ac father), the head 

of an abbey (see Abbey), the lady of 
similar rank being called abbess. An 
abbess, however, was not, like the abbot, 
allowed to exercise the spiritual func¬ 
tions of the priesthood, such as preach¬ 
ing, confessing, etc.; nor did abbesses 
ever succeed in freeing themselves from 
the control of their diocesan bishop. In 
the early age of monastic institutions 
(say 300-600 a. d.) the monks were not 
priests, but simply laymen who retired 
from the world to live in common, and 
the abbot was also a layman. In the 
course of time the abbots were usually 
ordained, and when an abbey was directly 
attached to a cathedral the bishop was 
also abbot. At first the abbeys were 



Fulda in Germany ; the most noteworthy 
English abbeys were those of West¬ 
minster, St. Mary’s of York, Fountains, 
Kirkstall, Tintern, Rievaulx, Netley ; and 
of Scotland, Melrose, Paisley, and Ar¬ 
broath. See Abbot, Monastery. 

Ah'hpv Edwin Austin, artist; born 
Philadelphia, 1852; educated 
at Phila. Academy of the Fine Arts. 
Exhibited his first picture, A May Day 
Morning, at the Royal Academy in 1890; 
was commissioned by King Edward YII 
to paint the scene of his coronation in 
1901. Has painted many notable pic¬ 
tures, including Crusaders Sighting Jeru¬ 
salem, The Quest of[ the Holy Grail, etc., 
also two published illustrated editions of 
Herrick's Foems , She Stoops to Conquer, 
Comedies of Shakespere, etc. Died 1911. 

Abbiategrasso «e 

north of Italy, 14 miles w. s. w. of Milan. 
Pop. about 6,000. 


more remarkable for their numbers than 
for their magnitude, but latterly many of 
them were large and richly endowed, and 
the heads of such establishments became 
personages of no small influence and 
power, more especially after the abbots 
succeeded (by the eleventh century) in 
freeing themselves from the jurisdiction 
of the bishop of their diocese. Hence 
families of the highest rank might be seen 
eagerly striving to obtain the titles of 
abbot and abbess for their members. 
The great object was to obtain control 
over the revenues of the abbeys, and for 
this purpose recourse was had to the 
device of holding them under a kind of 
trust, or, as it was called, in commendam. 
According to the original idea the abbot 
in commendam, or ‘ commendator,’ was 
merely a temporary trustee, who drew’ 
the w’hole or part of the revenues during 
a vacancy, and was bound to apply them 
to specific purposes; but ultimately the 
















Abbot of Misrule 


Abbreviations 


commendator or lay abbot in many in¬ 
stances held the appointment for life", and 
was allowed to apply the whole or a large 
portion of the revenues to his own 
private use. Many of the abbots latterly 
vied with the bishops and nobility in 
rank and dignity, wearing a miter and 
keeping up a great style. In England 
twenty-seven abbots long sat in the 
House of Lords. The Reformation in¬ 
troduced vast changes, not only in Prot¬ 
estant countries, where abbeys and all 
other monastic establishments were gen¬ 
erally suppressed, but even in countries 
which still continued Roman Catholic; 
many sovereigns, while displaying their 
zeal for the R. Catholic Church by per¬ 
secuting its opponents, not scrupling to 
imitate them in the confiscation of church 
property. The title abba is given to the 
bishops of the Copts and Syrians, and 
abuna (‘our father’) to the head of the 
Abyssinian Church. 


Abbot of Misrule, ‘ w \ e 0 

chief part in the Christmas revelries of 
the English populace before the Reforma¬ 
tion. 

Ahhnt George, Archbishop of Can- 
nuuui ’ terbury, born 1552 died 1633; 
studied at Oxford, assisted in the transla¬ 
tion of the Bible, was made Bishop of 
Lichfield in 1609, next year Bishop of 
London, and in 1611 Archbishop of Can¬ 
terbury. He retained the favor of James 
I to the last, but after the accession of 
Charles I his influence at court was su¬ 
perseded by that of Laud. He published 
several works, chiefly theological. 

A'h'hnttifnrd (ab'bots-ford), the coun- 
xluUUlblOlU. tr y seat of gir Wa i ter 

Scott, on the south bank of the Tweed, 
in Roxburghshire, 3 miles from Melrose, 
in the midst of picturesque scenery, form¬ 
ing an extensive and irregular pile in the 
Scottish baronial style of architecture. 
AVhntt Jacob, a popular and pro- 
AU uuil, j.g c American writer, es¬ 
pecially of entertaining books for the 
young ; born 1803 died 1879 ; was teacher 
and subsequently clergyman.—His 
brother, John Stephens Cabot (b. 
1805, d. 1877), Congregational clergy¬ 
man, wrote a number of books, chiefly 
historical.— Lyman, son of Jacob Abbott, 
b. 1835, Congregational clergyman, has 
written works chiefly religious in char¬ 
acter, such as Jesus of Nazareth, His 
Life and Teachings; Popular Religious 
Dictionary, etc. He succeeded Beecher 
in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in 1S88, 
retiring in 1898. Since Beecher’s death 
he has been editor of the Outlook. 
AKhrPviatinnq (a-bre-vi'a'shuns). de- 

ADDreviauonb vices used in writ _ 


ing and printing to save time and space, 
consist usually of curtailments effected 
in words and syllables by the removal of 
some letters, often of the whole of the 
letters except the first. The following is 
a list of the more important:— 

@, ad, at. 

A. B., artium baccalaureus, bachelor of 
arts. 

Abp., archbishop. 

A. C., ante Christum, before Christ. 

Ac., acre. 

Acc., A/c. or Acct., account. 

A. D., anno Domini, in the year of our 
Lord : used also as if equivalent to ‘ after 
Christ,’ or ‘ of the Christian era.’ 

Ad lib., ad libitum, at pleasure. 

Adv., adverb. 

^Et. or iEtat., cetatis (anno), in the 
year of his age. 

A. H., anno Hejirce, in the year of the 
Hegira. 

Ala., Alabama. 

A. M., anno mundi, in the year of the 
world ; ante meridiem, forenoon; artium 
magister, master of arts. 

Anon., anonymous. 

App., appendix. 

Ark., Arkansas. 

Ariz., Arizona. 

A. R. A., associate of Royal Academy 
(London). 

A.-S., Anglo-Saxon. 

Atty.-Gen., attorney-general. 

A. U. C., ab urbe condita, from the 
building of Rome (753 b. c.). 

A. V., authorized version. 

B. A., bachelor of arts. 

Bart, or Bt., baronet. 

Bbl., barrel. 

B. C., before Christ. 

B. C. L., bachelor of civil law. 

B. L., bachelor of laws. 

B. M., bachelor of medicine or of music. 

Bp., bishop. 

B. Sc., or B. S., bachelor of science or 
of surgery. 

C. , cap., or chap., chapter. 

C., centum, hundred, also centigrade. 

Cal., California. 

Can., Canada. 

Capt., captain. 

c. c., Cc., cubic centimetre. 

C. E., civil engineer. 

Cf., confer, compare. 

Ch., church. 

C. J., chief justice. 

C. M., chirurgiw magister, master in 
surgery; common metre. 

c. m., centimetre. 

Co., company or county. 

C. O. D., cash on delivery. 

Col., Colorado; colonel. 

Coll., college. 

Com., commander; committee. 



Abbreviations 


Abbreviations 


Conn., Connecticut. 

Cr., creditor. 

Crim. con., criminal conversation. 

C. S., civil service 

Curt., current, the present month. 

Cwt., hundredweight. 

d. , denarius, penny or pence. 

D. C., District of Columbia; from the 
beginning. 

D. C. L., doctor of civil law. 

D. D., doctor of divinity. 

D. D. S., doctor of dental surgery. 

Del., Delaware. 

Dep., deputy. 

D. E. defender of the faith. 

D. G., Dei gratia, by the grace of God. 
Diet., dictionary. 

D. Lit., doctor of literature, 
do., ditto, the same. 

D. O. M., Deo Optimo Maximo , to God, 
the best and greatest. 

Dept., department. 

Dr., doctor, also debtor. 

D. Sc., doctor of science. 

D. V., Deo volente, God willing. 

Dwt., pennyweight. 

E. , east. 

Ed., edition; editor. 

E. E., errors excepted, electrical engi¬ 
neer. 

e. g., exempli gratia, for example. 

E. I., East Indies. 

Eng., England. 

Esq., esquire. 

et al., et alii, and others, 
et seq., and the following. 

Etc. or &c., et ccetera, and the rest. 
Exr., executor. 

F. , Franc, florin, farthing, foot. 

F. or Falir., Fahrenheit’s thermometer. 

F. A. S., fellow of the Antiquarian So¬ 
ciety. 

F. D., fidei defensor , defender of the 
faith. 

Fee., fecit, he made or did it. 

F. F. V., first families of Virginia. 

F. G. S., fellow of the Geological So¬ 
ciety. 

Fla., Florida. 

F. M. field-marshal. 

F. O. B., free on board (goods deliv¬ 
ered). 

F. It. A. S., fellow of the Royal Astro¬ 
nomical (or Asiatic) Society. 

F. R. G. S., fellow of the Royal Geo¬ 
graphical Society. 

F. R. S., fellow of the Royal Society. 

F. R. S. E., fellow of the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh. 

Fr. France. 

Ft., foot or feet, 
g., gr., gramme. 

G. B., Great Britain. 

Gen., General, Genesis. 

Ga., Georgia. 

Ger. Germany. 


G. O. P., Grand Old Party (the U. S. 
Republican party). 

Gov., governor. 

Hhd., hogshead. 

H. M. S., his or her majesty’s ship 
or service. 

hoc est, this is. 

Hon., honorable. 

H. R., house of representatives. 

l a. , Iowa. 

lb. or Ibid., Ibidem, in the same place. 
Id., idem, the same. 

Ida., Idaho. 

i. e., id est, that is. 

4* I. H. S., Jesus hominum salvator, 
Jesus the Saviour of men : originally it 
was IH2, the first three letters of 
IH20Y2 ( Iesous ), Jesus. 

Ill., Illinois. 

Incog., incognito, unknown. 

Ind., Indiana. 

Inf., infra, below. 

Inst., instant, or of this month; in¬ 
stitute. 

I. O. U., I owe you. 

i. q. idem quod, the same as. 

J. D., juris doctor, doctor of law. 

Jr., junior. 

J. U. D., juris utriusque doctor, doctor 
both of the civil and the canon law. 

Kan., Kansas. 

K. C. B., knight commander of the 
Bath. 

K. G., knight of the Garter, 
kg., kilogramme. 

kilo., kil., kilometre, 
kilog., kilogramme. 

Kt, or Knt., knight. 

Ky., Kentucky. 

L. , 1., or £, pounds sterling. 

L. A., literate in arts. 

La., Louisiana. 

Lat., latitude. 

Lb. or lb. libra, a pound (weight), 

1. c., loco citato, in the place cited. 
Lib., (liber) a book. 

Lieut., lieutenant. 

Lit. D., doctor of literature. 

LL. B., legum baccalaureus, bachelor 
of laws. 

LL. D., legum doctor, doctor of laws 
(that is the civil and the canon law). 
LL. M., master of laws. 

Lon. or Long., longitude. 

L. S. locus sigilli, the place of the seal. 

L. S. D., librw, solidi, denarii, pounds, 
shillings, pence. 

M. , monsieur. 

M. A., master of arts. 

Maj., Major. 

Maj-gen. Major-general. 

Math., mathematics. 

Mass., Massachusetts. 

M. B., medicinw baccalaureus, bach¬ 
elor of medicine. 

M. C., member of congress. 




Abbreviations 


Abbreviations 


M. D., medicines doctor, doctor of medi¬ 
cine. 

Md., Maryland. 

Me., Maine. 

M. E., mining engineer ; Methodist Epis¬ 
copal. 

Mem., memorandum. 

Messrs., messieurs , gentlemen. 

Mich., Michigan. 

Minn., Minnesota. 

Miss., Mississippi. 

Mile., mademoiselle, 
mm., millimetre. 

Mme., madame. 

Mo., Missouri. 

Mon., Montana. 

M. P., member of Parliament. 

MS., manuscript; MSS., manuscripts. 

M. S., master of science. 

Mus. D., musices doctor , doctor of 
music. 

N. , north; name. 

N. A., North America. 

N. B., nota bene, take notice ; also New 
Brunswick. 

N. C., North Carolina. 

N. D., North Dakota. 

N. E., Northeast. 

Neb., Nebraska. 

Nem. con., nemine contradicente, no one 
contradicting, unanimously. 

Nev., Nevada. 

N. H., New Hampshire. 

N. J., New Jersey. 

N. M., New Mexico. 

No., numero, number. 

N. P., notary public. 

N. S., new style, Nova Scotia. 

N. S. W., New South Wales. 

N. T., New Testament. 

N. W., Northwest. 

N. Y., New York. 

N. Z., New Zealand. 

O. , Ohio. 

Ob., obiit, died. 

O. K., all correct 
Ok., Oklahoma. 

Ore., Oregon. 

O. S., old style. 

O. T., Old Testament. 

Oxon., Oxoniensis, of Oxford. 

Oz., ounce or ounces. 

Par., paragraph. 

Pa., Penn., Penna., Pennsylvania. 

P. C., privy-councilor. 

P. E., Protestant Episcopal. 

Per cent., per centum, by the hundred. 
Ph. D., philosophies doctor , doctor of 
philosophy. 

Pinx., pinxit, painted it. 

P. M., post meridiem, afternoon. 

P. O., postoffice. . . 

P. P., parish priest; past participle. 
Pp., pages. 

P. pr., present participle. 

2—1 


P. P. C., pour prendre cong4 , to take 
leave. 

Prep., preposition. 

Pres., president. 

Prof., professor. 

Pron., pronounce. 

Pro tem., pro tempore, for the time 
being. 

Prox., proximo (mense ), next month. 

P. S., postscript. 

Q. , question ; queen. 

q. e. ( quod est) , which is. 

Q. E. D., quod erat demonstrandum, 
which was to be demonstrated. 

Q. E. F., quod erat faciendum, which 
was to be done. 

Qu., query. 

Quant, suff., q. s., quantum sufficit, as 
much as is needful. 

Q. V., quod vide, which see. 

R. , rex, regina, king, queen. 

R. A., royal academician. 

R. C., Roman Catholic. 

R. E., royal engineers. 

Rev., reverend. 

R. I., Rhode Island. 

R. I. P., requiescat in pace, may he rest 
in peace. 

R. S. V. P., r4pondez, s'il vous plait, 
reply, if you please. 

Rt. Hon., right honorable. 

Rt. Rev., right reverend. 

Rt. Wpful., right worshipful. 

R. V., revised version. 

S. , south. 

S. or St., saint. 

S. C., South Carolina; Supreme Court. 
Sc. or Ss., scilicet, namely, viz. 

S. D., South Dakota. 

S. E., southeast. 

Sec., secretary ; section ; second. 

Seq., Sequens, the following. 

S. J., Society of Jesus (Jesuits). 

S. P. Q. R., senatus populusque Roman - 
us, the senate and people of Rome. 

Sq. ft., square feet. 

Sq. in., square inches. 

Sq. m., square miles. 

Sr., senior. 

St., saint, street. 

Ste., sainte. 

S. V., sub voce, under the word or head¬ 
ing. 

S. W., Southwest. 

Tenn., Tennessee. 

Tex., Texas. 

U., Utah. 

Ult., ultimo, last (month). 

U. S., United States. 

U. S. A., United States of America, 
United States army. 

U. of S. A., Union of South Africa. 

U. S. N., United States navy. 

V. , vide, see; also versus, against, 
v., volt or volts. 



Abd-el-Kader 


Abdul-Hamid II 


Va., Virginia. 

V. C., Victoria Cross. 

V. D. M., verbi dei minister, minister of 
the word of God. 

Vice-Pres., vice-president. 

Viz., videlicet , to wit, or namely. 

V. S., veterinary surgeon. 

Vs., versus, against. 

Vt., Vermont. 

W. , West. 

Wash., Washington. 

W. I., West Indies. 

Xmas, Christmas. 

Wis., Wisconsin. 

W. V., West Virginia. 

Wy., Wyoming. 

&, and. 

&c., and so forth. 

In LL. D., LL. B., etc., the letter is 
doubled, according to the Roman system, 
to show that the abbreviation represents 
a plural noun. 

A bd-fd-ICader (abd-el-ka'der), an 

ADa-ei-J^aaer Arab chief born in 

Algeria, 1807; died at Damascus, 1883. 
He was the chief opponent of the French 
in their conquest of Algeria, but at last 
surrendered to them in 1847, and was 
imprisoned till set at liberty by Napoleon 
III, in 1852. Afterwards he resided 
chiefly at Damascus, but made various 
journeys, and visited the Paris exhibition 
of 1867. He wrote a religious work in 
Arabic. 

Abdera (ah-de'ra), an ancient Greek 
“ UUCAa city on the Thracian coast, the 
birthplace of Democritus (the laughing 
philosopher), Anaxarchus, and Protag¬ 
oras. Its inhabitants were proverbial 
for stupidity. 

Abdication th^ohmtary? ’but r0 some^ 

times also the involuntary, resignation of 
an office or dignity, and more especially 
that of sovereign power. Abdication does 
not necessarily require the execution of a 
formal deed, but may be presumed from 
facts and circumstances, as in the case of 
the English Revolution in 1688, when, 
after long debate, it was resolved by both 
houses of parliament that King James II, 
having endeavored to subvert the constitu¬ 
tion of the kingdom, had ‘ abdicated the 
government, and that the throne is 
thereby vacant.’ Yet the sovereign of 
Great Britain cannot constitutionally 
abdicate without the consent of both 
bouses of parliament. 

Abdomen (ab-do'men), in man, the 
belly, or lower cavity of the 
trunk, separated from the upper cavity 
or thorax by the diaphragm or midriff, 
and bounded below by the bones of the 
pelvis. It contains the viscera belonging 
to the digestive and urinary systems. 


What are called the abdominal regions 
will be understood from the accompany¬ 
ing cut, in which 1 is 
the epigastric region, 

2 the umbilical, 3 the 
pubic, 4 4 the right 
and left hypochondriac, 

5 5 the right and 
left lumbar, 6 6 right 
and left iliac. The 
name is given to the 
corresponding portion 
of the body in other 
animals. In insects it 
comprises the whole 
body behind the 
thorax, usually consist¬ 
ing of a series of 
rings, 



Abdominal Regions. 


Abdominal Fishes 

soft-finned (or malacopterous) fishes hav¬ 
ing fins upon the abdomen, and compris¬ 
ing the herring, pike, salmon, carp, 
etc. , _ 

Abdnr>Hrm (ab-duk'shun), a legal 
iioauciion \ erm> generally applied 

to denote the offense of carrying off a 
female, either forcibly or by fraudulent 
representations. Such a delinquency in 
regard to a man is styled kidnapping. 
There are various kinds of abduction 
recognized in criminal jurisprudence, 
such as that of a child, of an heiress, or 
of a wife. 

Abdul-A7iV (ab'dol-az'ez), Sultan of 
21UUUI 11614 Turkey bro ther to Ab- 

dul-Mejid, whom he succeeded in June, 
1861. He concluded treaties of commerce 
with France and England, both of which 
countries he visited in 1867. Deposed in 
May, 1876, he committed suicide, or more 
probably was assassinated, in June, the 
same year. He was succeeded by his 
nephew, Murad V. 

Abdul-Hamid II (ab'dol-ha'mid), 

21UUU1 Jidiiuu J.J. Sultan of Tur _ 

key, younger son of Abdul-Mejid, born in 
1842, succeeded his brother Murad V, 
who was deposed on proof of his insanity 
in 1876. At that time Turkey, which 
was at war with Servia, was compelled 
to agree to an armistice at the demand 
of Russia. The persecution of the 
Christian population of Bulgaria led, in 
April, 1877, to a declaration of war by 
Russia. During the sanguinary struggle 
which ensued the Turks fought with great 
bravery, but they had ultimately to sue 
for peace, the capture of Constantinople 
being imminent. A treaty was signed 
at San Stefano in Feb., 1878, but its 
provisions were modified by a congress of 
the great powers which met at Berlin. 
(See Berlin, Treaty of.) In 1908 Abdul 










Abdul-Latif 


Abelard 


was obliged by the demands of reformers 
to restore the constitution which he had 
abrogated in 1876. An effort on his part 
to regain his autocratic power led to a 
military outbreak in 1909, ending in his 
deposition in favor of his brother 
Mohammed. See Turkey. 

Abdul-Latif (^dol-la-tef') an Arab 

writer and physician, 
born at Bagdad in 1161, died there in 
1231. He was patronized by the cele¬ 
brated Saladin, and published an excel¬ 
lent description of Egypt, which is still 
extant. 

Abdul-Mejicl MS^borffn 

1822 or 1823, succeeded his father, 
Mahmud II, July 1, 1839. At the 
time of his accession Mehemet, Pasha of 
Egypt, had a second time risen against 
the Turkish yoke; his son Ibrahim had 
inflicted a severe defeat on the Turks at 
Nizib (24th June, 1839), and was 
advancing on Constantinople. But the 
intervention of the leading European 
powers checked the designs of Mehemet 
Ali, and saved the Turkish empire. 
Abdul-Mejid was desirous of carrying out 
reforms, but most of them remained 
inoperative, or caused bloody insurrec¬ 
tions where attempts were made to carry 
them out. Owing to disputes between 
the Latin and Greek Churches regarding 
the rights of precedence and possession at 
the ‘ holy places ’ in Palestine, and to 
demands made by the czar virtually 
implying the right of protectorate over 
the Christian subjects of the sultan, war 
broke out between Turkey and Russia in 
1853. In the following year the Porte 
effected an alliance with France and 
England (hence the Crimean War), and 
later on with Sardinia. (See Crimean 
War.) Abdul-Mejid died in 1861, and 
was succeeded by his brother, Abdul- 

Abd-er-Kahman (ab s d u 1named 

An Nasir, eighth Sultan and first Caliph 
of Cordova, began to reign in 912. 
Brought the Mohammedan empire in 
Spain to its highest pinnacle of glory. 
Built a palace near Cordova of unequalled 
magnificence. Died in 961. 

A hf\ pr-T?flyman Ameer of Afghan- 
iiuCl 6r nailinan, j gtan ^ ^ orn about 

1830, was chosen ameer in 1880 and 
proved an able ruler, friendly, to the 
British, who paid him an annual subsidy. 
Died, 1901. 

Abecedarian , h ? 

first four letters of the alphabet, and 
applied to the followers of S torch, a 
German Anabaptist, in the sixteenth 


ceutury, because they rejected all worldly 
knowledge, even the learning of the al¬ 
phabet. 

A Beek'ett Gilbert Abbot, English 
* writer, born near Lon¬ 
don in 1811. He studied for the bar, 
and became one of the original staff of 
Punch, was long a leader-writer of the 
Times and Morning Herald. He wrote 
Comic History of England , Comic History 
of Rome , and Comic Blackstone, and 
between fifty and sixty plays, some of 
which still keep the stage. In 1849 he 
was appointed a metropolitan police 
magistrate, an office he retained till his 
death in 1856. His son, Arthur William, 
born in 1844, became a journalist and 
wrote a number of plays and novels. He 
was on the staff of Punch from 1874 to 
1902. 

A Becket Thomas. See Bechet. 

ALel (a'bel), properly Helel (Heb. 

> breath, vapor, transitoriness), the 
second son of Adam. He was a shepherd, 
and was slain by his brother Cain from 
jealousy because his sacrifice was ac¬ 
cepted while Cain’s was rejected. Sev¬ 
eral of the fathers, among others Sts. 
Chrysostom and Augustin regard him as 
a type of Christ. 

Abelard ( ab ' e - lar d), or abailard, 
Peter, a celebrated scholastic 
teacher, born near Nantes in Brittany, in 
1079. . He made extraordinary progress 
with his studies, and, ultimately eclipsing 
his teachers, he opened a school of 
scholastic philosophy near Paris, which 
attracted crowds of students from the 
neighboring city. His success in the fiery 
debates which were then the fashion in 
the schools made him many enemies, 
among whom was Guillaume de Cham- 
peaux, his former teacher, chief of the 
cathedral school of N6tre Dame and the 
most advanced of the Realists. Abelard 
succeeded his adversary in this school (in 
1113), and under him were trained many 
men who afterwards rose to eminence, 
among them being the future Pope 
Celestin II, Peter Lombard, and Arnold 
of Brescia. While he was at the height 
of his popularity, and in his fortieth year, 
he became infatuated with a passion for 
Heloi’se—then only eighteen years of age 
—-niece of Fulbert, a canon of Paris. Ob¬ 
taining a home in Fulbert’s house under 
the pretext. of teaching Heloi’se philoso¬ 
phy, their intercourse at length became 
apparent, and Abelard, who had retired to 
Brittany, was followed by Heloi’se, who 
there gave birth to a son. A private 
marriage took place, and Heloi’se returned 
to her uncle’s house, but refusing to make 
public her marriage (as likely to spoil 



Abele 


Abercromby 


Abelard’s career), she was subjected to 
severe treatment at the hands of her 
uncle. To save her from this Abelard 
carried her off and placed her in a con¬ 
vent at Argenteuil, a proceeding which 
so incensed Fulbert that he hired ruffians 
who broke into Abelard’s chamber and 
subjected him to a shameful mutilation. 
Abelard, filled with grief and shame, be¬ 
came a monk in the abbey of St. Denis, 
and H6loise took the veil. When time had 
somewhat moderated his grief he resumed 
his lectures; but trouble after trouble 
overtook him. His theological writings 
were condemned by the Council of Sois- 
sons, and he retired to an oratory called 
the Paraclete, subsequently becoming head 
of the abbey of St. Gildas-de-Rhuys in 
Brittany. For a short time he again 
lectured at Paris (1136), but his doctrines 
again brought persecution on him, and St. 
Bernard had him condemned by the 
council of Sens and afterwards by the 
pope. Abelard did not long survive this, 
dying at St. Marcel, near Chfilon-sur- 
Saone, in 1142. Heloise, who had be¬ 
come abbess of the Paraclete, had him 
buried there, where she herself was after¬ 
wards laid by his side. Their ashes were 
removed to Paris in 1800, and in 1817 
they were finally deposited beneath a 
mausoleum in the cemetery of P&re la 
Chaise. Abelard is credited with the 
invention of a new philosophical 
system, midway between Realism and 
Nominalism. A complete edition of his 
works was published by Cousin (2 vols., 
Paris, 1849-59), and the letters of Abe¬ 
lard and Il6loise have been often pub¬ 
lished in the original and in translations. 
Ahele (a-bel'), a name of the white 
c poplar. 

Abelite Abelian (a'bel-it, a-bel'i-an), 
9 a member of a religious sect 
in Africa which arose in the fourth 
century after Christ. They married, but 
lived in continence, after the manner, as 
they maintained, of Abel, and attempted 
to keep up the sect by adopting the 
children of others. 

Abenakis, see Abnakis. 

Abencerrages at 

tinguished Moorish family of Granada, 
the chief members of which, thirty-six in 
number, are said to have been massacred 
in the Alhambra by the king Abu-Hassan 
(latter half of the fifteenth century) on 
account of the attachment of his sister to 
one of them—a legend which has fur¬ 
nished the subject of many poems both 
Arabic and Spanish, and formed the basis 
for Chateaubriand’s Aventures du der¬ 
nier des Abencerages. 


A Bah TVra (a'ben ez'ra), a celebrated 
iioen ^id Jewish rabbi, born at 

Toledo about 1119, traveled in pursuit of 
knowledge in England, France, Italy, and 
Greece, and is supposed to have died in 
Rhodes about 1174. He particularly dis¬ 
tinguished himself as a commentator on 
Scripture. 

Abensbere (a'bSns-berft), a Bavarian 
& manufacturing town with 
2200 inhabitants; celebrated for Napo¬ 
leon’s victory over the Austrians, 20th 
April, 1809. 

Abeoku'ta. See Abbeokuta. 


Aber (ab'er), a prefix in Celtic geo- 
xxucj. g ra phi ca i proper names signifying 
the mouth or entrance of a river into the 
sea, or into another stream. It is used 
chiefly in Wales and Scotland, having the 
same meaning as inver. 

AViAravrm (ab-er-a'von), a small 

Aoeravon industrial town in 

Glamorganshire, Wales, near the mouth 
of the Avon in Swansea Bay, embracing 
Aberavon proper and its harbor Port 
Talbot. There are collieries, iron works, 
tin and copper works, etc. Pop. 10,506. 

Ahprrromhie (ab'er-krum-be), John, 
-fiDercruiiiuie M D a gcottish wr i t er 

on medical and moral science, and an 
eminent physician, born in Aberdeen, 
1781, died at Edinburgh in 1844. He 
graduated at the university of Edinburgh 
in 1S03, and subsequently pursued his 
studies in London, returning to Edin¬ 
burgh in 1804, where he acquired an ex¬ 
tensive practice as a physician. Apart 
from medical treatises, he is known from 
his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual 
Powers and his Philosophy of the Moral 
Feelings. 

Ah'ArrrnmbiP Patrick, a Scottish 
iiD ercromoie, historical writer and 

antiquary, born at Forfar, 1656, date of 
death uncertain. Educated at St. An¬ 
drews and abroad, he took the degree of 
m. d., and practised as a physician in 
Edinburgh. In 1685 he was appointed 
physician to James II. His chief work 
is Martial Achievements of the Scots 
Nation , 2 vols. folio, 1711-16. 

Ah'erfirombv Sir R ALp H, A British 
ilo eioiuiiiuy, general? born in 1734 


in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. He 
entered the army in 1756 as cornet in the 
Third Dragoon Guards; and gradually 
passed through all the ranks of the 
service until he became a major-general 
in 1787. He served as lieut.-general in 
Flanders, 1793-95, and was then appointed 
commander-in-chief of the forces in the 
West Indies, where he captured the 
islands of Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vin¬ 
cent, and Trinidad, with the settlements 



Aberdare 


Aberdeen 


of Demerara and Essequibo. On his re¬ 
turn in 1798 he was appointed com¬ 
mander-in-chief in Ireland ; and he after¬ 
wards held a corresponding command in 
Scotland. His next and concluding serv¬ 
ice was in the expedition to Egypt, of 



General Sir Ralph Abercromby. 


which he was commander-in-chief. He 
landed, after a severe contest, at Aboukir, 
March 8, 1801; and on the 21st of the 
same month was fought the battle of 
Alexandria, in which he was mortally 
wounded. 

AVwavrlarp (ab-er-dar'), a town of 
AUeiUcUC gouth WaleSj in Glamor¬ 
ganshire, pleasantly situated at the junc¬ 
tion of the Cynon and Dare, 4 miles 
southwest of Merthyr-Tydfil, with exten¬ 
sive coal and iron mines in the vicinity. 
Has large iron and tin works. Pop. 
50,844. 

AliPvrlAAn (ab-er-den'), a royal and 

Aoeraeen parliamentary burg h 0 f 

Scotland, in the county of the same name, 
on the left bank of the Dee at its en¬ 
trance into the North Sea, mainly, sit¬ 
uated on several slight eminences rising 
above the river. It is one of the oldest 
towns in Scotland. Constituted a royal 
burgh by William the Lion, 1179, it was 
burned by the English in 1330, but soon 
rebuilt, when it was called New Aberdeen. 
The streets are generally spacious and 
regular, the houses built of fine grayish- 
white granite. It has many handsome 
public buildings, as the County and 
Municipal Buildings, Marischal College, 
Grammar School, Infirmary, Arts School, 
Music Hall Buildings, etc. There is a 
tidal harbor of about 18 acres, and a dock 
28 acres in extent. The harbor entrance 
is protected by a pier 2,000 feet long, and 
a breakwater 1,050 feet long. The ship¬ 
ping trade is extensive. Among the in¬ 


dustries are woolen, cotton, jute, and linen 
factories, paper works, shipbuilding 
yards, and granite works. Pop. 181,918. 
—Old Aberdeen, a small but ancient 
town and royal burgh, lies about a mile 
north of the new town, between it and 
the river Don. Its chief buildings are 
King’s College and St. Machar’s Cathe¬ 
dral. The cathedral, now used as the 
parish church, was commenced about 
1357. Over the Don is a fine old Gothic 
bridge of one arch, erected, according to 
some accounts, by Robert Bruce.— The 
County of Aberdeen forms the north¬ 
eastern portion of Scotland, and is 
bounded on the east and north by the 
North Sea. Area, 1,955 square miles. 
It is divided into six districts (Mar, 
Formartine, Buchan, Alford, Garioch, 
and Strathbogie), and is generally hilly, 
there being in the southwest some of 
the highest mountains in Scotland. Its 
most valuable mineral is granite, large 
quantities of which are exported. The 
principal rivers are the Dee and the 
Don, both of which enter the sea at 
the town of Aberdeen. Cereals (ex¬ 
cept wheat) and other crops succeed 
well, and the number of acres under 
cultivation is nearly double that of any 
other Scottish county. Great numbers 
of cattle are fattened and sent to Lon¬ 
don and the south. On the banks of the 
upper Dee is situated Balmoral, a favorite 
residence of Queen Victoria. Pop. 304,- 
400.— Aberdeen University, as now 
constituted, derives its origin from two 
different foundations; one, the University 
and King’s College (Old Aberdeen), 
founded in 1494 by Bishop Elphinstone, 
the other, Marischal College and Univer¬ 
sity (New Aberdeen), founded in 1593 by 
Geo. Keith, Earl Marischal, by a charter 
ratified by act of parliament. These were 
incorporated into the University of 
Aberdeen in 1860. The constitution of 
the university is similar to that of Edin¬ 
burgh and the other Scottish universities. 
The library numbers over 80,000 volumes. 
The university unites with that of Glas¬ 
gow in sending one member to parliament. 
ALAvrl^A-n a city, capital of Brown 

iiDeraeen, co> South Dakota 82 

miles N. of Huron. It has flowing ar¬ 
tesian wells, which furnish power in abun¬ 
dance, and has manufactures of well 
supplies, chemicals, grain-pitchers, ma¬ 
chine shop and foundry products, flour, 
etc. Here is the Northern Normal and 
Industrial School. Pop. (1900), 4,087, 


(1910) 10,713. 

A IiAvrl aah a city of Chehalis co., 
nuciuccn, Washington, on n. shore 

of Gray’s Harbor, 54 miles w. of Olym¬ 
pia. Lumbering and salmon-fishing are 



Aberdeen 


Abib 


important industries, and coal and iron 
are found in the vicinity. There are 
large saw and shingle mills, foundry and 
machine shops, and other manufactures. 
The population, 3,747 in 1900, was 13,660 
in 1910. 


George Hamilton Gor- 
xlUciUcCIL , don, Earl of, British 

statesman, born in 17S4, died in 1860. 
He began his diplomatic life in 1801 as 
attache to Lord Cornwallis’s embassy to 
France, which resulted in the signing of 
the treaty of Amiens. In 1806 he 
entered parliament as a Scottish repre¬ 
sentative peer, and in 1813 was intrusted 
with a successful mission to Austria for 
the purpose of inducing the emperor to 
join the coalition of sovereigns against 
Bonaparte. In 1814 he was created a 
British peer, and in 1828 he became 
foreign secretary under the Duke of 



Earl of Aberdeen. 

Wellington’s administration, and in 1841 
in that of Sir Robert Peel. On the 
death of Peel in 1850 he became regarded 
as the leader of the Conservative free- 
trade party, and on the fall of the Derby 
ministry in 1852 he returned to office 
as head of a coalition ministry. The 
principal event which marked his admin¬ 
istration was the Crimean war; but the 
bad management of this irritated the 
country, and the ministry resigned in 
1855. This event marks the close of Lord 
Aberdeen’s public career. From his trav¬ 
els and his acquaintance with Greece and 
its antiquities he was called by Byron, 
‘ the traveled thane, Athenian Aberdeen.’ 

Ab'erdevine. See Siskin. 


Abergavenny (generally pron. ab- 
AUeigdVdiuiy er-ga'niL a town of 

England, in Monmouthshire. It manu¬ 
factures woolens and shoes, and has a 


considerable trade, there being extensive 
coal and iron mines in the vicinity. Pop. 
8511. 

AViAvriAtliv (ab-er-neth'i), James, a 
,n.uciiiCLii t y g co ttish civil engineer, 

born in Aberdeen in 1815; died in 1896. 
He was the first to apply hydraulic 
power to working lock gates; built the 
Birkenhead and other docks and was 
director of the works for draining Lake 
Aboukir in Egypt by which 20,500 acres 
were reclaimed. 

Abernetbv ( a b-6r-neth'i), John, an 
J eminent English surgeon, 
of somewhat eccentric habits, born in 
1764 in London, a pupil of the celebrated 
John Hunter. In 1787 he became assis¬ 
tant surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hos¬ 
pital, and shortly after lecturer on 
anatomy and surgery. In 1815 he was 
elected principal surgeon, and under his 
auspices the hospital attained a celebrity 
which it had never before enjoyed. He 
published Surgical Observations; The 
Constitutional Origin and Treatment of 
Local Diseases: and Lectures , explana¬ 
tory of Hunter’s opinion of the vital 
processes, besides smaller essays. He 
died in 1831. 

Aberration <ab-«r-ra'shnn), in as- 

tronomy. the difference 
between the true and the observed posi¬ 
tion of a heavenly body, the result of the 
combined effect of the motion of light and 
the motion of the eye of the observer 
caused by the annual or diurnal motion of 
the earth ; or of the motion of light and 
that of the body from which the light pro¬ 
ceeds. When the auxiliary cause is the 
annual revolution of the earth round the 
sun it is called annual aberration, in con¬ 
sequence of which a fixed star may ap¬ 
pear as much as 20".4 from its true posi¬ 
tion ; when the auxiliary cause is the 
diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis 
it is called diurnal aberration, which 
amounts at the greatest to 0".3; and 
when the auxiliary cause is the motion of 
the body from which the light proceeds it 
is called 'planetary aberration. Mental 
aberration, a departure from the normal 
mental condition. 

Abersychan ( a b-er-sik'an), a town of 
J Monmouthshire, Eng¬ 

land, about 10 miles north of Newport, in 
a rich coal-mining district. Pop. 24,661. 
AhATV«itwitTl (ab-er-ist'withL a sea- 

iioerysxwitn port and fashionable 

watering-place of Wales, county of Cardi¬ 
gan, on Cardigan Bay. There is here a 
University College occupying a handsome 
Gothic building. Pop. 8412. 

Abib ( a ' bib ^ the month of the 

Jewish ecclesiastical year and the 
seventh of the civil year, corresponding 



Abies 


Aboukir 


to the latter part of March and the first 
of April. Also called Nisan. 

Ahipst (ab'i-es), a genus of coniferous 
° trees. See Fir and Spruce. 
Ahllpnp (ab'i-len), a city of Texas, 
c c the capital of Taylor co., on 
the Texas and Pacific Railroad, 161 
miles w. of Fort Worth. It is an im¬ 
portant shipping point for grain and cat¬ 
tle, and has cotton gins, oil mill and 
compress, also flour and corn mills, 
creamery, etc. It is surrounded by cot¬ 
ton, grain and fruit farms. Pop. 9,204. 

Ah'infrrlnn a town of England, in 

u inguuil, Berkshire> 50 miles north . 

west of London, on the right bank of the 
Thames. It was an important place in 
Anglo-Saxon times, and Offa, king of 
Mercia, had a palace in it. Pop. 6810. 

Abiosrenesis^: 131 ' 5 '^ 11 ' 6 - 858 ^ the doc - 

° trine or hypothesis that 

living matter may be produced from non¬ 
living ; . spontaneous generation. See 
Generation ( Spontaneous). 

AbinOTlPS ^b-i-pon'ez), an Indian tribe 
xxuUJune o f South America, dwelling 
in the Gran Chaco district of Paraguay. 
The hostility of the Spaniards forced 
them finally to move southward to the 
territory between Santa F6 and St. Jago. 
A hi lira 'firm Oath of, an oath which 

iiDjura uon, by an English act passed 

in 1701 had to be taken by all holders of 
public offices, clergymen, teachers, mem¬ 
bers of the universities, and lawyers, ad¬ 
juring and renouncing the exiled Stuarts: 
superseded in 1858 by a more compre¬ 
hensive oath, declaring allegiance to the 
present royal family .—Abjuration of the 
realm was an oath that a person guilty of 
felony, and who had taken sanctuary, 
might take to go into exile, and not re¬ 
turn on pain of death. 

Ahkasia (ab-ka'se-a), a Russian dis- 
x u a a trict, at the western extremity 
and south of the Caucasus, between these 
mountains and the Black Sea. The Ab- 
kasians form a race distinguished from 
their neighbors in various respects. At 
one time they were Christians, but lat¬ 
terly adopted Mohammedanism. Recently 
many of them have migrated into Turkish 
territory. 

Ablative (ab'la-tiv), a term applied 
to a case of nouns, adjec¬ 
tives, and pronouns in Latin, Sanskrit, 
and some other languages; originally 
given to the case in Latin because separ¬ 
ation from ( ah , from, latus, taken) was 
considered to be one of the chief ideas 
expressed by the case. 

A "h via Vies (ab-na'kes), a confederation 
of Alffonqllin Indian tribes 
in Maine and New Brunswick, hostile 
to the English, who defeated them and 


forced them to take refuge in Canada 
in 1724. A small body of them still live 
in Maine and others in Quebec. 

Abo (°. b u)> a town and port in Russian 
Finland. Population 39,238. 
Abolitionists (ab-6-li'shun-ists), a 

party in the United 
States before the Civil war, which strongly 
opposed the continuation of slavery and 
demanded its abolition. After 1830 it 
spread rapidly and some of its doctrines 
were adopted by the Republican party 
when organized in 1856. It won its end 
when slavery was abolished as a conse¬ 
quence of the war. 

Aboll'a an ancient military garment 
’ worn by the Greeks and Ro¬ 
mans: opposed to the toga or robe of 
peace. 

Ahmrmciim (ab-o-ma'sum). Aboma'- 
xiDomdsum gug the fourth stomach 

of ruminating animals, next to the 
omasum or third stomach. 

Alinmpv (ab'o-ma) or Agbomey, the 
capital of the former kingdom 
of Dahomey, in West Africa, in a fertile 
plain, near the coast of Guinea. Pop. est. 
15,000-30,000. 

Ahnricnnpti (ab-o-rij'i-nez), the name 
XlUUIlgmex> given in general to the 

earliest known inhabitants of a country, 
those who are supposed to have inhab¬ 
ited the land from the beginning (L. ab¬ 
origine ). 

Ahnrtinn (a-bor'shun), in medicine, 
xiuui null the expulsion of the foetus 

before it is capable of independent exis¬ 
tence. This may take place at any pe¬ 
riod of pregnancy before the completion 
of the twenty-eighth week. A child born 
after that time is said to be premature. 
Abortion may be the result of the gen¬ 
eral debility or ill health of the mother, 
of a plethoric constitution, of special af¬ 
fections of the uterus, of severe exer¬ 
tions, sudden shocks, etc. Various medic¬ 
inal substances, generally violent em- 
menagogues or drastic medicines, are be¬ 
lieved to have the effect of provoking 
abortion, and are sometimes resorted to 
for this purpose. Attempts to procure 
abortion are punishable by law in all 
civilized states.—The term is applied in 
botany to denote the suppression by non¬ 
development of one or more of the parts 
of a flower, which consists normally of 
four whorls—namely, calyx, corolla, sta¬ 
mens, and pistil. 

Ahnnlrir(&-bo-ker'; ancient Canopus). 
AUUUM1 a small village on the Egyp¬ 
tian coast, 10 miles east of Alexandria. 
In Aboukir Bay took place the naval 
battle in which Nelson annihilated a 
French fleet on the night of 1st and 2d 
August, 1798, thus totally destroying the 




Abou-Simbel 


Abruzzi 


naval power of France in the Mediter¬ 
ranean. Near this place on 25th July, 
1799, Napoleon defeated the Turks under 
Mustapha; and on March 8, 1801, Sir 
Ralph Abercromby effected the landing 
of a British army against the French. 

Abou-Simbel. See Ipsambul. 

About ( a ' b6 )» Edmond Francois Val- 
xiuuuu ENTIN> a French novelist and 
miscellaneous writer, born in 1828, died 
in 1885. He was educated at the Lyc6e 
Charlemagne and the fJcole Normale, 
Paris; was sent at government expense 
to the French school at Athens; on his 
return to Paris devoted himself to liter¬ 
ature. Principal novels: Tolla, Le Roi 
des Montagues, Germaine, Madelon, Le 
Fellah, La Vieille Roche, L'Infame, Les 
Mariages de Province. Le Roman d'un 
Brave Homme, etc.; miscellaneous works ; 
La Grece Contemporaine, La Question 
Romaine, La Prusse en 1860, Rome Con¬ 
temporaine, etc. He was in his later 
years elected a member of the Academy. 
About wrote in a bright, humorous, and 
interesting style, and his novels have been 
very popular. 

Abracadabra (a-bra-ca-dab'ra), , .a 

word of eastern origin 
used in incantations. When written on 
paper so as to form a triangle, the first 
line containing the word in full, the one 
below it omitting the last letter, and so on 
each time until only one letter remained, 
and worn as an amulet, it was supposed 
to be an antidote against certain diseases. 


ABRACADABRA 
ABRACADABR 
ABRACADAB 
ABRACADA 
A B R A C A D 

A B R A C A 

A B R A C 

A B R A 

A B R 

A B 
A 


Abraham (a'bra-ham), originally 
Abram, the ancestor of the 
Hebrew people, was born at Ur in Chal¬ 
dea probably about or before 2000 b. c. 
He migrated, accompanied by his wife 
Sarah and his nephew Lot, to Canaan, 
where for many years he led a nomadic 
life. His two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, 
were, according to Genesis, the progeni¬ 
tors of the Jews and Arabs, respectively. 

Abraham, heights or plains of. 

’ See Quebec. 

Abraham a Santa Clara, a Ger - 

. . ’man 

pulpit orator, real name Ulrich Megerle, 
born in 1642. As a preacher he ac¬ 
quired so great a reputation that in 1669 


he was appointed court-preacher in 
Vienna, where he died in 1709. His ser¬ 
mons are full of homely, grotesque hu¬ 
mor, often of coarse wit, and impartial 
severity towards all classes of society. 

Abraham-men, originally a set of 
7 mendicant lunatics 
from Bethlehem Hospital, London: but 
as many assumed, without right, the 
badge worn by them the term came to 
signify an impostor who traveled about 
the country seeking alms, under the pre¬ 
tense of lunacy. 

Ab'ramis, a genus of fishes. See 
Bream. 

ATvran+Ac (a-bran'tes), a fortified 
zlUlcUltcb town of Portugal, on the 

right bank of the Tagus (here navigable), 
73 miles n. e. of Lisbon, with w T hich it 
carries on an active trade. Pop. about 
8000. 

Abrantes, Duke of. See Junot. 

ATrraYas (a-braks'sas), or Abrasax 
nuitiAaa Stones, the name given to 

stones or gems found in Syria, Egypt, 
and elsewhere, cut into almost every 
variety of shape, but generally having a 
human trunk and arms, with a cock’s 
head, two serpents’ tails for the legs, etc., 
and the word Abraxas or Abrasax in 
Greek characters engraved upon them. 
They appear to have been first used by 
the Gnostic sect, and eventually came to 
be used as talismans. 

A'hrno’a+inn (ab-r5-ga'shun), the re- 
ADrogmion pealing of a law by a com . 

petent authority. 

Ahrnmo (a-bro'ma), a genus of small 
xiUIUIIlci treeg> natives of India, Java, 

etc., one species of which, A. augusta, has 
a bark yielding a strong white fibre, from 
which good cordage is made. 

AbrUS (ab'rus), a genus of papilion¬ 
aceous plants, order Legumi- 
nosse, one species of which, Abrus pre- 
catorius, a delicate twining shrub, a na¬ 
tive of the East Indies, and found also 
in tropical parts of Africa and America, 
has round, brilliant scarlet seeds, used to 
make necklaces and rosaries. Its root is 
sweetish and mucilaginous, and is used 
as a substitute for liquorice under the 
name of Indian liquorice. 

AbrUZZi (d-brut'se), division of Italy 
on the Adriatic, between Um¬ 
bria and the Marches on the north, and 
Apulia on the south, comprising the 
provinces of Abruzzo Citeriore, Abruzzo 
Ulteriore I, and Abruzzo Ulteriore IT, 
which, along with Campobasso, form a 
government (compartimento). 

Abruzzi Huke of. a prince of the 

’ house of Savoy, son of Ama¬ 
deus, ex-King of Spain, first cousin of 




Absalon 


Abu-Bekr 


King of Italy and an Arctic and moun¬ 
tain explorer, was born January 29, 1873. 
He is an officer of the Italian navy. 
In 1897 he made the first ascent of 
Mount St. Elias and in 1900 penetrated 
nearer the North Pole than any previous 
explorer, reaching 86° 34' N. lat., north 
of Franz Joseph Land. He subsequently 
ascended a high peak in Africa and in 
1909 attempted to scale Mount Godwin 
Austin in the Himalayas. This cliff 
(28,250 feet) is the second highest 
known. Abruzzi reached a little over 
19,000 feet, at which height he was com¬ 
pelled to give up the attempt. 

Ab'salon or ^ XEL ’ a Danish prelate, 

9 statesman, and warrior, born 
in 1128, died 1201 or 1202. He became 
the intimate friend and counselor of his 
sovereign, Waldemar I, who appointed 
him Archbishop of Lund. He cleared 
the sea of the Slavonic pirates who had 
long infested it, secured the independence 
of the kingdom by defeating a powerful 
fleet of the Emperor Barbarossa, and 
built the castle of Axelborg, the nucleus 
of Copenhagen. Turning his thoughts to 
literature, he caused the History of Den¬ 
mark to be written by Saxo Gram¬ 
maticus and Sueno Aagesen. 

A (ab'ses), any collection of 

xxu^c&& purulent matter or pus 
formed in some tissue or organ of the 
body, and confined within some circum¬ 
scribed area, of varying size, but always 
painful and often dangerous. 

AVcinth French Absinthe (ab-sant), 
xx u bin in, a liqueur consisting of an al¬ 
coholic solution strongly flavored with an 
extract of several sorts of wormwood, 
oil of anise, etc. When taken habitually, 
or in excess, its effects are very perni¬ 
cious. It is a favorite drink of the Paris¬ 
ians. 

A Lenin firm (ab-so-lu'shun), remission 
XXUbUlUliUIi of a p enitent * s sins in the 

name of God. It is commonly main¬ 
tained that down to the twelfth century 
the priests used only what is called the 
precatory formular. * May God or Christ 
absolve thee/ which is still the form in 
the Greek Church; whereas the Roman 
Catholic uses the expression ‘ I absolve 
thee in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ,’ basing this power on the author¬ 
ity of the New Testament. This theory 
of absolution was confirmed by the Coun¬ 
cil of Trent. The passages of Scripture 
on the basis of which the Roman Cath¬ 
olic Church lays down its doctrine of ab¬ 
solution are such as Matt, xvi, 19; xviii, 
18; John xx, 23. Among Protestants ab¬ 
solution properly means a sentence by 
which a person who stands excommuni¬ 
cated is released from that punishment. 


Absorbents (ab-sorb'ents), the sys- 
xxubuiueiilb tem of minute vesse i s by 

which the nutritive elements of food and 
other matters are carried into the circu¬ 
lation of vertebrate animals. The ves¬ 
sels consist of two different sets, called 
respectively lacteals and lymphatics. The 
former arise from the digestive tract, the 
latter from the tissues generally, both 
joining a common trunk which ultimately 
enters the circulatory system. Absorb¬ 
ents in medicine are substances such as 
chalk, charcoal, etc., that absorb or suck 
up excessive secretion of fluid or gas. 

Absorntioil (ab-sorp'shun), in phys- 
xxubuiptiun iology> one of the vital 

functions by which the materials of nutri¬ 
tion and growth are absorbed and con¬ 
veyed to the organs of plants and ani¬ 
mals. In vertebrate animals this is done 
by the lymphatics and lacteals, in plants 
chiefly by the roots. See Absorbents. 

In physics, absorption of color is the 
phenomenon observed when certain colors 
are retained or prevented from passing 
through transparent bodies; thus pieces 
of colored glass are almost opaque to 
some parts of the spectrum, while allow¬ 
ing other colors to pass through freely. 

Abstinence. See FastinTem P er - 

dTlCC• 

ALdtrartimi (ab-strak'shun), the op- 

ADSiraciion eration of the mind by 

w r hich it disregards part of what is pre¬ 
sented to its observation in order to con¬ 
centrate its attention on the remainder. 
It is the foundation of the operation of 
generalization, by which we arrive at 
general conceptions. In order, for ex¬ 
ample, to form the conception of a horse, 
we disagreed the color and other pecu¬ 
liarities of the particular horses observed 
by us, and attend only to those qualities 
which all horses fyave in common. In ris¬ 
ing to the conception of an animal we 
disregard still more qualities, and attend 
only to those which all animals have in 
common with one another. 

Abll a granitic mountain of 

India in Sirohi state, Rajput&na, 
rising precipitously from the surrounding 
plains, its top forming a picturesque and 
varied tract 14 miles long and 2 to 4 
broad; highest point 5,653 ft. It is a 
hot-weather resort of Europeans, and is 
the site of two most beautiful Jain 
temples. 

AVm-TOplrr (a'bu-bek'er), or Fatheb 
xx uu QF THE y IRGIN tbe father- 

in-law and first successor of Mohammed. 
His right to the succession was unsuc¬ 
cessfully contested by Ali, Mohammed’s 
son-in-law, and a schism took place, 
which divided the Mohammedans into the 
two great sects of Sunnites and Shiites, 



Abukir 


Abyssinia 


the former maintaining the validity of 
Abu-Bekr’s and the latter that of Ali’s 
claim. 

Abukir'. See Aboukir. 

Aim Tflpa (abu-kle'a), a group of 
xx uu ivica W ells, surrounded by steep, 

black mountains, about 120 miles from 
Khartoum, in the Soudan, where, on the 
17th January, 1885, Sir Herbert Stewart, 
with 1500 men, defeated the Mahdi’s 
troops, numbering 10,000. 

Abulfaragius iu & 

tinguished scholar, a Jew by birth 
(hence the name of Barhebrwus, often 
given him), author of numerous works in 
Arabic and Syriac, was born in Armenia 
in 1226, died in 1286. About 1264 he 
was ordained bishop of Guba, afterwards 
of Aleppo, and about 1264 was appointed 
primate of the Jacobite Christians. His 
principal work is a History of the World, 
from the creation to his own day, written 
in Syriac, with an abridged version in 
Arabic, entitled The Abridged History of 
the Dynasties. 

AVmlfprla (a-biil-fe'da), Arab writer, 
iiDUiieaa p rince of Hamah, in 

Syria, of the same family that had pro¬ 
duced Saladin, famous as an historian 
and geographer, was born at Damascus 
1273, died 1331. Amid the cares of gov¬ 
ernment he devoted himself with zeal to 
study, drew the learned around him, and 
rendered his power and wealth subser¬ 
vient to the cause of science. His most 
important works are his History of the 
Human Race (the portion from the birth 
of Mohammed to his own time being valu¬ 
able), and his geography, called The 
True Situation of Countries. 

Abury (a'be-ri). See Avebury. 
Abushehr (iLho-shaU). See Bush - 

Abu-Simbel. See Ipsambul. 

Abutilon (a-ba'ti-lon), a genus of 
plants, order Malvaceae, 
sometimes called Indian mallows, inhabit¬ 
ing the East Indies, Australia, Brazil, 
Siberia, etc. Several of them yield a 
valuable hemp-like fibre, as A. indicum 
and A. avicennw. The latter, now a 
troublesome weed in the Middle United 
States, has-been recommended for cultiva¬ 
tion, and is sometimes called American 
jute. 

Abutment (a-but'ment), the part of 

a bridge which reooivos 
and resists the lateral outward thrust 
of an arch; the masonry, rock, or 
other solid materials from which an arch 
springs. 


AhvHnc (a-bi'dus). (1). An ancient 
xiuyuub c j ty 0 £ ^ g j a jyji nor< on the 

Hellespont, at the narrowest part of the 
strait, opposite Sestos. Leander, say an¬ 
cient writers, swam nightly from Abydos 
to Sestos to see his loved Hero—a feat 
in swimming accomplished also by Lord 
Byron.— (2). An ancient city of Upper 
Egypt, about 6 miles west of the Nile, 
now represented only by ruins of tem¬ 
ples, tombs, etc. It was celebrated as 
the burying-place of the god Osiris, and 
its oldest temple was dedicated to him. 
Here, in 1818, was discovered the famous 
Abydos tablet, now in the British Mu¬ 
seum, and containing a list of the pred¬ 
ecessors of Rameses the Great, which 
was supplemented by the discovery of a 
similar historical tablet in 1864. 

A Weeinia (a-bis-sin'i-a) (Arabic 
-tiuybblllld, Habesh), a country of 

Eastern Africa, -which, roughly speaking, 
may be said to extend from lat. 6° to 15° 
N. and Ion. 35° to 43° E. ; having Eritsea 
on the N. e., the Soudan on the N. w., the 
Dan&kil country and Somali on the e., 
Somali and the Galla country on the 
s. e., and British East Africa on the s. 
and w.; total area about 150,000 sq. m.; 
chief divisions Tigr6, Amhara, and Shoa. 
It is, as a whole, an elevated region, with 
a general slope to the northwest. The 
more marked physical features are a 
series of tablelands, of various and often 
of great elevations, and numerous masses 
or ranges of high and rugged mountains, 
dispersed over the surface in wild confu¬ 
sion. Along the deep ravines that divide 
the plateaux rush numerous streams, 
which impart great fertility to the plains 
and valleys below. The mountains in 
various parts of the country rise to 12,- 
000 and 13,000 feet, while some of the 
peaks are over 15.000 feet (Ras Dashan 
being 15,160), and are always covered 
with snow. The principal rivers belong 
to the Nile basin, the chief being the im¬ 
petuous Tacazze (‘the Terrible’) in the 
north, and the Abai in the south, the 
latter being really the upper portion of 
the Blue Nile. The principal lake is 
Lake Tzana or Dembea (from which 
issues the Abai), upwards of 6,000 feet 
above the sea, having a length of about 
45 and a breadth of 35 miles. Round 
this lake lies a fertile plain, called the 
granary of the country.—According to 
elevation there are several zones of vege¬ 
tation. Within the lowest belt, which 
reaches an elevation of 4,800 feet, cotton, 
wild indigo, acacias, ebony, baobabs, 
sugar-canes., coffee-trees, date-palms, etc., 
flourish, while the larger animals are lions, 
leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippo¬ 
potamuses, jackals, hyenas, numerous an- 





Abyssinia 


Abyssinia 


telopes, monkeys, and crocodiles. The 
middle zone, rising to 9000 feet, produces 
the grains, grasses, and fruits of southern 
Europe, the orange, the vine, peach, 
apricot, the bamboo, sycamore-tree, etc. 
The principal grains are millet, barley, 
wheat, maize, and teff, the latter a 
small seed, a favorite breadstuff of the 
Abyssinians. Two, and in some places 
three, crops are obtained in one year. All 
the domestic animals of Europe, except 
swine, are known. There is a variety of 
ox with immense horns. The highest 
zone, reaching to 14,000 feet, has but 
little wood, and generally scanty vegeta¬ 
tion, only the hardier corn-plants being 
grown ; but oxen, goats, and long-wooled 
sheep find abundant pasture.—The 
climate is as various as the surface, but 
as a whole is temperate and agreeable; 
in some of the valleys the heat is often 
excessive, while on the mountains the 
weather is cold. In certain of the lower 
districts malaria prevails.—The chief 
mineral products are sulphur, iron, cop¬ 
per, coal, and salt, the latter serving to 
some extent as money. There has been 
a great intermixture of races in Abys¬ 
sinia. What may be considered the Abys¬ 
sinians proper seem to have a blood-rela¬ 
tionship with the Bedouin Arabs. The 
complexion varies from very dark through 
different shades of brown and copper to 
olive. The figure is usually symmetrical. 
Other races are the black Gallas from the 
south; the Falashas, who claim descent 
from Abraham, and retain many Jewish 
characteristics; the Agows, Gongas, etc. 
The great majority of the people profess 
Christianity, belonging, like the Copts, to 
the sect of the Monophysites. Their re¬ 
ligion consists chiefly in the performance 
of empty ceremonies, and gross supersti¬ 
tion as well as ignorance prevails. The 
head of the church is called the Abuna 
(‘our father’), and is consecrated by 
the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. Geez 
or Ethiopian is the language of their sa¬ 
cred books; it has long ago ceased to be 
spoken. The chief spoken language is the 
Amharic; in it some books have been pub¬ 
lished. Mohammedanism appears to be 
gaining ground in Abyssinia, and in 
respect of morality the Moslems stand 
higher than the Christians. A corrupt 
form of Judaism is professed by the 
Falashas.—The bulk of the people are 
devoted to agriculture and cattle-breeding. 
The trade and manufactures are of small 
importance. A good deal of common cot¬ 
ton cloth and some finer woven fabrics are 
produced. Leather is prepared to some ex¬ 
tent, silver filigree work is produced, and 
there are manufactures of common ar¬ 
ticles of iron and brass, coarse black pot¬ 


tery, etc. A small foreign trade used to 
be carried on through Massowa, on the 
Red Sea (now in the hands of the Ital¬ 
ians), the principal exports being hides, 
coffee, honey, wax, gum, ivory, etc., the 
imports textile fabrics, fire-arms, tobacco, 
etc. The Abyssinians were converted to 
Christianity in the fourth century, by 
some missionaries from Alexandria. In 
the sixth century the power of the sov¬ 
ereigns of their kingdom, which was gen¬ 
erally known as Ethiopia, had attained 
its height; but before another had expired 
the Arabs had invaded the country, and 
obtained a footing. For several centuries 
subsequently the kingdom continued in a 
distracted state, being now torn by in¬ 
ternal commotions and now invaded by 
external enemies (Mohammedans and 
Gallas). To protect himself from the 
last the Emperor of Abyssinia applied, 
about the middle of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, to the King of Portugal for assist¬ 
ance, promising, at the same time, im¬ 
plicit submission to the pope. The solic¬ 
ited aid was sent, and the empire saved. 
The Roman Catholic priests endeavored to 
induce the emperor and his family to re¬ 
nounce the tenets and rites of the Coptic 
Church, and to adopt those of Rome. 
This attempt, however, was resisted by 
the ecclesiastics and the people, and 
ended, after a long struggle, in the ex¬ 
pulsion of the Catholic priests about 
1630. The kingdom gradually fell into a 
state of anarchy, and was broken up 
into several independent states. An at¬ 
tempt to revive the power of the ancient 
kingdom of Ethiopia was commenced 
about the middle of the present century 
by King Theodore. He introduced Eu¬ 
ropean artisans, and went to work wisely 
in many ways, but his cruelty and 
tyranny counteracted his politic measures. 
In consequence of a slight, real or fan¬ 
cied, which he had received at the hands 
of the British government, he threw 
Consul Cameron and a number of other 
British subjects into prison, in 1863, and 
refused to give them up. To effect their 
release an army of nearly 12,000 men, 
under Sir Robert (afterwards Lord) 
Napier, was dispatched from Bombay in 
1867. After being defeated in a battle 
Theodore delivered up the captives and 
shut himself up in Magdala, which was 
taken by storm on the 13th April, Theo¬ 
dore being found among the slain. The 
withdrawal of the British was followed 
by. fighting for supremacy among the 
chiefs, Kasa (who assumed the name of 
King Johannes) gaining control of the 
northern provinces and Menelek of Shoa. 
Later Johannes became supreme and in 
1881 assumed the title of emperor (negus 



Acacia 


Academy 


ncgest —king of kings), having under 
him the Kings of Shoa and Gojam. 
Advantage was taken of the troubles in 
Abyssinia by the Egyptians in the north 
and the Gallas in the south to acquire 
additional territory at its expense. Egypt 
annexed the region round Massowa, 
Abyssinia being shut out from the sea. 
Johannes was succeeded in 1889 by 
Menelek II, who placed the kingdom 
under an Italian protectorate. Disputes 
about the text of the treaty followed, 
hostilities broke out and the Italians met 
with complete defeat in 1896, the country 
being freed from foreign control. Men¬ 
elek endeavored to develop the civilization 
of his people and cultivated relations with 
foreign powers. The incapacity of Mene¬ 
lek through ill health caused a regency 
to be established. The regent died, April 
11, 1911, and Prince Sidj Jeassu, grand¬ 
son of Menelek, 15 years old, was pro¬ 
claimed emperor, May 14, 1911. Popu¬ 
lation 3,500,000. 

Acacia ( a ~ c a'shi-a), a genus of plants, 
nat. order Leguminosae, sub¬ 
order Mimoseae, consisting of trees or 
shrubs with compound pinnate leaves and 
small leaflets, growing in Africa, Arabia, 



Acacia (Acacia seyal ). 


the East Indies, Australia, etc. The 
flowers, usually small, are arranged in 
spikes or globular heads at the axils of 
the leaves near the extremity of the 
branches. The corolla is bell or funnel 
shaped ; stamens are numerous; the fruit 
is a dry, unjointed pod. Several of the 


species yield gum arabic and other gums; 
some have astringent barks and pods, 
used in tanning. A. catechu , an Indian 
species, yields the valuable astringent 
called catechu: A. dealbata, the wattle- 
tree of Australia, from 15 to 30 feet in 
height, is the most beautiful and useful of 
the species found there. Its bark con¬ 
tains a large percentage of tannin, and 
is hence exported. Some species yield 
valuable timber; some are cultivated for 
the beauty of their flowers. 

Academy (a-cad'e-mi), an associa- 

J tion for the promotion of 
literature, science, or art; established 
sometimes by government, sometimes by 
the voluntary union of private individuals. 
The name academy was first applied to 
the philosophical school of Plato, from 
the place where he used to teach, a grove 
or garden at Athens which was said to 
have belonged originally to the hero 
Academus. Academies devote themselves 
either to the cultivation of science gen¬ 
erally or to the promotion of a particular 
branch of study, as antiquities, language, 
and the fine arts. The most celebrated 
institutions bearing the name of acad¬ 
emies, and designed for the encourage¬ 
ment of science, antiquities, and lan¬ 
guage respectively, are the French Acad6- 
mie des Sciences (founded by Colbert in 
1666), Acad^mie des Inscriptions 
(founded by Colbert in 1663), and Acad6- 
mie Francaise (founded by Richelieu in 
1635), all of which are now merged in 
the National Institute. The oldest of the 
academies instituted for the improvement 
of language is the Italian Accademia 
della Crusca (now the Florentine Acad¬ 
emy), formed in 1582, and chiefly cele¬ 
brated for the compilation of an excellent 
dictionary of the Italian language, and 
for the publication of several carefully 
prepared editions of ancient Italian poets. 
In Britain the name of academy, in the 
more dignified sense of the term, is con¬ 
fined almost exclusively to certain institu¬ 
tions for the promotion of the fine arts, 
such as the Royal Academy of Arts 
and the Royal Scottish Academy. The 
Royal Academy of Arts (usually called 
simply the Royal Academy) was founded 
in London in 1768, ‘ for the purpose of 
cultivating and improving the arts of 
painting, sculpture, and architecture.’ 
The Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, 
Sculpture, and Architecture was founded 
in 1826 and incorporated in 1838. It con¬ 
sists of thirty academicians and twenty 
associates. The Royal Hibernian Acad¬ 
emy at Dublin was incorporated in 1823. 
and reorganized in 1861. It consists of 
thirty members and ten associates. The 
American Philosophical Society, the oldest 



Acadia 


Acceleration 


scientific institution in America, was or¬ 
ganized in 1744, in Philadelphia. The 
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel¬ 
phia was organized in 1812, and the Acad¬ 
emy of Fine Arts in 1805. The American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, incorpor¬ 
ated in 1780, is located at Boston, as also 
the Society of Natural History. The Con¬ 
necticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 
was organized in New Haven in 1799. 
The New York Academy of Sciences was 
incorporated as the Lyceum of Natural 
History in 1818. The Peabody Academy 
of Sciences, Salem, Mass., was endowed 
by George Peabody in 1867. The Smith¬ 
sonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 
founded by James Smithson, an English 
scientist, incorporated by Congress in 
1846. Its publications have given it 
prominent standing among scientists. 
The American Academy of Arts and Let¬ 
ters was organized in 1904, with a limited 
membership of 50, of persons who had 
made notable achievements in art, music 
or literature. There are active Academies 
in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, San 
Francisco, New Orleans and other cities. 
Aoarlia (a-ka'di-a; French Acadie ), the 
ntdUld French name of Nova Scotia. 
It received its first colonists from France 
in 1604, being then a possession of that 
country, but it passed to Britain, by the 
Peace of Utrecht, in 1713. In 1755, 
18,000 of the French inhabitants were 
forcibly removed from their homes on 
account of their hostility to the British, 
an incident on which is based Long¬ 
fellow’s Evangeline. See Nova Scotia. 

ApalpnTia (a-ka-le'fa; Gr. akalephe , a 
XVLdicpiid nettle> from their stinging 

properties), a term formerly used to de¬ 
note the Medusae or jelly-fishes and their 
allies. 

Apanfhappa* (a-kan-tha'se-e), or 
xiCdll HldLcec Acanthads, a natural 

order of dicotyledonous herbaceous plants 
or shrubs, with opposite leaves and mono- 
petalous corolla, mostly tropical; species 
about 1400. See Acanthus. 

Acanthopteri, 




a, 6, c, Spines of the dorsal, anal, and 
ventral fins of Acanthopterygii. 



Acanthus of Corinthian 
Capital. 


(Gr. akantha, a spine, pterygion, a fin), 
a group of fishes, distinguished by the 
fact that at least the first rays in each 
fin exist in the form of stiff spines; it 
includes the perch, mullet, mackerel, gur¬ 
nard, wrasse, etc. 

ApantVinc (a-kan'thus), a genus of 
AiscuibilUd herbaceous plants or shrubs, 

order, Acanthaceae, mostly tropical, two 
species of which, 
spinosus (the 
bear’s-br eech 
or b r a n k u r- 
sine) ? are char¬ 
acter i z e d by 
large white 
flowers and 
deeply indent¬ 
ed, s h i ni n g 
leaves. They 
are favorite ornamental plants.—In arch¬ 
itecture the name is given to a kind of 
foliage decoration said to have been sug¬ 
gested by this plant, and much employed 
in Roman and later styles. 

Acapulco t ? e KSSS 

with a capacious, well-sheltered harbor; a 
coaling station for steamers, but with no 
great trade. Pop. 4,932. 

A pari rip (a-kar'-i-da), a division of the 
xxodiiud Arachnida? including the 

mites, ticks, and water-mites. See Mite. 

A pa mania (ak-ar-na'ni-a), the most 
xXCdi iidiiid westerly p 0rtion 0 f North¬ 
ern Greece, together with ^Etolia now 
forming a nomarchy. The Acarnanians 
of ancient times were behind the other 
Greeks in civilization, living by robbery 
and piracy. 

A panic (ak'a-rus, pi. acari), the genus 
xx^diua to which the mite be iongs. 

A p'pa d or Ak'kad, the s. E, division of 
^ ancient Babylonia, Sumis form¬ 

ing the N. w. The Accadians were the 
dominant people at the time of the ear¬ 
liest records. They had descended from 
the mountainous region of Elam on the 
east, and the Assyrians ascribed to them 
the origin of Chaldean civilization and 
writing. This race is believed to have be¬ 
longed to the Turanian family, from the 
character of its language. What is known 
of them has been learned from the cunei¬ 
form inscriptions. 

A ppplpratinn (ak-sel-e-ra'shun), the 
iicceieiduun increase of velocity 

which a body acquires when continually 
acted upon by a force in the direction of 
its motion. A body falling from a height 
is one of the most common instances of 
acceleration. —Acceleration of the 
moon, the increase of the moon’s mean 
angular velocity about the earth, the 
moon now moving rather faster than in 








Accent 


Accolti 


ancient times. This phenomenon has not 
been fully explained, but it is known to 
be partly owing to the slow process of 
diminution which the eccentricity of the 
earth’s orbit is undergoing, and from 
which there results a slight diminution of 
the sun’s influence on the moon’s motions. 
—Diurnal acceleration of the fixed 
stars, the apparent greater diurnal mo¬ 
tion of the stars than of the sun, arising 
from the fact that the sun’s apparent 
yearly motion takes place in a direction 
contrary to that of its apparent daily mo¬ 
tion. The stars thus seem each day to 
anticipate the sun by nearly 3 minutes 56 
seconds of mean time. 

AnnA-nf (ak'sent), a term used in 
several senses. In English it 
commonly denotes superior stress or force 
of voice upon certain syllables of words, 
which distinguishes them from the other 
syllables. Many English words, as as'pi- 
ra"tion, have two accents, a secondary 
and primary, the latter being the fuller or 
stronger. Some words, as in-com'pre- 
hen'si-biV'ity, have two secondary or 
subordinate accents. When the full ac¬ 
cent falls on a vowel, that vowel has its 
long sound, as in vo'cal; but -when it falls 
on a consonant, the preceding vowel is 
short, as in hab'it. This kind of accent 
alone regulates English verse as con¬ 
trasted with Latin or Greek verse, in 
which the metre depended on quantity or 
length of syllables. In books on elocu¬ 
tion three marks or accents are generally 
made use of, the first or acute (') show¬ 
ing when the voice is to be raised, the 
second or grave ('), when it is to be 
depressed, and the third or circumflex 
(~) when the vowel is to be uttered 
with an undulating sound. < In some lan¬ 
guages there is no such distinct accent as 
in English (or German), and this seems 
to be now the case with French.—In 
music, accent is the stress or emphasis 
laid upon certain notes of a bar. The 
first note of a bar has the strongest ac¬ 
cent, but weaker accents are given to the 
first notes of subordinate parts of the 
bars, as to the third, fifth, and seventh 
in a bar of eight quavers. 

Aeeenfnv ( Accentor moduldris ), or 
xxuuciitux Hedge Accentor, a genus 

of seed and insect-eating passerine birds. 
See Hedge-warbler. 

Anrentanne (ak-sep'tans), in law, 
iiccep unite the act by wbich a 

person binds himself to pay a bill of ex¬ 
change drawn upon him. (See Bill.) 
No acceptance is valid unless made in 
writing on the bill, but an acceptance 
may be either absolute or conditional, 
that is, stipulating some alteration in the 
amount or date of payment, or some con¬ 


dition to be fulfilled previous to pay¬ 
ment. 

Accessary ( ak - se s'a-ri, ak'se-sa-ri) 
j or a CCESS0R y 4 m law, a 
person guilty of an offense by connivance 
or participation, either before or after the 
act committed, as by command, advice, 
concealment, etc. An accessary before 
the fact is one who procures or counsels 
another to commit a crime, and is not 
present at its commission ; an accessary 
after the fact is one w’ho, knowing a 
felony to have been committed, gives 
assistance of any kind to the felon so as 
to hinder him from being apprehended, 
tried, or suffering punishment. An acces¬ 
sary before the fact may be tried and 
punished in all respects as if he were 
the principal. In high treason,. all 
who participate are regarded as princi¬ 
pals. 

(ak-si-den'tals), notes 
HUOIUClIlclIb i ntro( j uce d in the course 

of a piece of music in a different key 
from that in which the passage they 
occur is principally written. They are 
represented by the sign of a sharp, flat, 
or natural immediately before the note 
which is to be raised or lowered. 

Anni'nifrpn (ak-sip'i-trez), the name 
iiCCipitieb giyen by Li n n8e us and 

Cuvier to the rapacious birds now usually 

called Rap tores (which see). 

Amlirrmti 7a ti on ( a " k i a_ f i _z a>_ 
iiccnmaiizd nun shun)t the proC ess 

of accustoming plants or animals to live 
and propagate in a climate different from 
that to w’hich they are indigenous, or the 
change which the constitution of an 
animal or plant undergoes under new 
climatic conditions, in the direction of 
adaptation to those conditions. The term 
is sometimes applied to the case of 
animals or plants taking readily to s. new 
country -with a climate and other circum¬ 
stances similar to what they have left, 
such as European animals and plants in 
America and New Zealand: but this is 
more properly naturalization than acclim¬ 
atization. 

ArnnlarlA ( ak -o-lad'; French, from L. 
.tittuidue ad, to, collum, the neck), 

the ceremony used in conferring knight¬ 
hood, anciently consisting either in the 
embrace given by the person who con¬ 
ferred the honor of knighthood or in a 
light blow on the neck or the cheek, 
subsequently consisting in the ceremony 
of striking the candidate with the flat of 
a naked sword. 

Arnnl'fi Renedetto, an Italian law- 
nuuu , yer. born at Arezzo in Tus¬ 
cany in 1415, died 1466 He was secre¬ 
tary to the Florentine republic, 1459 and 
author of a work on the Crusades which 



Accomodation Bill 


Acetylene gas 


is said to have furnished Tasso with mat¬ 
ter for his Jerusalem Delivered. 

Accommodation Bill, * A* \ \ 

■ exch a n g e 

drawn and accepted to raise money on, 
and not given, like a genuine bill of ex¬ 
change, in payment of a debt, but merely 
intended to accommodate the drawer; col¬ 
loquially called a wind bill and a kite. 

Accommodation ladder, i ad “ s e h J 

hung over the side of a ship at the gang¬ 
way to facilitate ascending from or de¬ 
scending to boats. 

Accompaniment ( . a ' kum t a - ni . me ” t >: 

* in music, is that 

part of music which serves for the support 
of the principal melody (solo or obligato 
part). This can be executed either by 
many instruments, by a few, or by a 
single one. 

Accordion (a-kor'di-un). a keyed 

xiA^uiUiuii mugical wind instrument 
similar to the concertina, being in the 
form of a small box, containing a number 
of metallic reeds fixed at one of their ex¬ 
tremities, the sides of the box forming a 
folding apparatus which acts as a bellows 
to supply the wind, and thus set the reeds 
in vibration, and produce the notes both 
of melody and harmony. 

AppvqTi (ak'kra). a British settlement 
xlLUdli in Africa, capital of the 
colony of Gold Coast, about 75 miles east 
of Cape Coast Castle. Exports, gold 
dust, ivory, gums, palm-oil; imports cot¬ 
tons, cutlery, firearms, etc. Pop. about 
20,000. 

Aprrinp’tnn (ak'kring-tun), a munici- 
ACOIlllglUll pal bor of Lancashire> 

England, 19 miles north of Manchester, 
with large cotton factories, print-works, 
and bleach-fields, and coal-mines adjacent. 
Pop. 45,031. 

Accumulator (a-kawia-tur) a 

ul name applied to a 

kind of electric battery by means of which 
electric energy can be stored and rendered 
portable. In the usual form each battery 
forms a cylindrical leaden vessel, contain¬ 
ing alternate sheets of metallic lead and 
minium wrapped in felt and rolled into 
a spiral wetted with acidulated. water. 
On being charged with electricity the 
energy may be preserved till required for 
use. 

Applicative Pace (a-ku'za-tiv), in 
.ticcubduve Latin and gome 

other languages, the term applied to the 
case which designates the object to which 
the action of any verb is immediately 
directed, corresponding, generally speak- 



which want a distinct head, correspond¬ 
ing to those that have bivalve shells and 
are also called Lamellibranchiata. 

Acer (a'ser), the genus of plants 
(natural order Aceracew) to 
which belong the maples. 

AceiTB; (a-cher'&), a town in South 
Italy, 7 miles northeast of 
Naples, the see of a bishop. Here are 
sulphur and mineral springs. Pop. 10,- 
443'. 

Acetabulum (as-e-tab'u-1 u m ), an 

anatomical term applied 
to any cup-like cavity, as that of a bone 
to receive the protuberant end of another 
bone, the cavity, for instance, that receives 
the end of the thigh-bone. 

Acetates <®?'e-tats>, saIts acetic . 

acid. The acetates of 
most commercial or manufacturing im¬ 
portance are those of aluminium and iron, 
which are used in calico-printing; of 
copper, which as verdigris is used as a 
color; and of lead, best known as sugar of 
lead. The acetates of potassium, sodium, 
and ammonium, of iron, zinc, and lead, 
and the acetate of opium are employed 
in medicine. 

Acetic Acid ( a : s . et ' ik - an 

acid produced by the 
oxidation of common alcohol and of many 
other organic substances. Pure acetic 
acid has a very sour taste and pungent 
smell, burns the skin, and is poisonous. 
From freezing at ordinary temperatures 
(58° or 59°) it is known as glacial acetic 
acid.' Vinegar is simply dilute acetic acid, 
and is prepared by subjecting wine or 
weak spirit to the action of the air; also 
from malt which has undergone vinous 
fermentation. Acetic acid, both con¬ 
centrated and dilute, is largely used in 
the arts, in medicine, and for domestic 
purposes. See Vinegar. 

Acet'ic Ethers, ““pounds consist- 

7 ing of acetates of 
alcohol radicals. Common acetic ether is 
a colorless, volatile fluid, and is a flavor¬ 
ing constituent in many wines. It is 
made artificially by distilling a mixture 
of alcohol, oil of vitriol, and acetate of 
potash. 

Acetones (as'e-tons), or Ketones, are 
the aldehydes of the second¬ 
ary alcohols. A series of these is known, 
of which acetone is the type. It is a 
limpid liquid, with a taste like pepper¬ 
mint, a solvent for gums and also gun¬ 
cotton. By distilling it with bleaching 
powder chloroform is produced. 

Acetylene gas (a-set'Uen), is 

J ° formed by casting 

the carbide of calcium, magnesium, potas¬ 
sium or other metal into water. The gas 
evolved is a brilliant illuminant. It is 



Achseans 


Achillaea 


used in lamps for bicycles and also in 

projecting lanterns, as the vitascope. 

ApTifpnnc (a-ke'anz), one of the four 
xxoiitcana raceg intQ which the ancient 

Greeks were divided. In early times they 
inhabited a part of Northern Greece and 
of the Peloponnesus, known as Achaia. 
They are represented by Homer as a brave 
and warlike people. 

A confederacy or league, known as the 
Achaean League, existed among the twelve 
towns of this region. After the death of 
Alexander the Great it was broken up, 
but was revived again, b. c. 280, and 
from this time grew in power till it spread 1 
over the whole Peloponnesus. It was 
finally dissolved by the Romans, b. c. 147, 
and after this the whole of Greece, except 
Thessaly, was called Achaia or Achaea. 
Achaia with Elis now forms a nomarchy 
of the kingdom of Greece. 

Achaemenidae (ak-s-men'i-ds), a 
dynasty of ancient 
Persian kings, being that to which the 
great Cyrus belonged. 

Achaia (a-ka'ya). See Achceans. 

Achalzich <a-**rtsefc», a fortified 

town of Russia, in Trans¬ 
caucasia, 70 miles east of the Black Sea. 
Pop. 18,000. 

Achard ( a ^' art ), Franz Karl, a 

German chemist, born in 

1753, died 1821, principally known by his 
invention (1789—1800) of a process for 
manufacturing sugar from beet-root. 
Achard (A-shar), Louis Am£d£e 

Eugene, born 1814, died 
1875, a French journalist, novelist, and 
playwright. Best known as a novelist; 
wrote the novels Belle Rose , La Chasse 
royale, Chateaux en Espagne, Role 
de Nessus, Chaines de fer, etc. 

Achates ( a ' ka 'te z ), a companion of 

iEneas in his wanderings sub¬ 
sequent to his flight from Troy. He is 
always distinguished in Virgil’s JEneid by 
the epithet fidus , ‘faithful,’ and has be¬ 
come typical of a faithful friend and com¬ 
panion. 

Acheen, or ^ CHIN (a-chen'), a native 
7 state of Sumatra, with cap¬ 
ital of same name, in the northwestern 
extremity of the island, now nominally 
under Dutch administration. Though 
largely mountainous, it has also undulat¬ 
ing tracts and low, fertile plains. By 
treaty with Britain the Dutch were pre¬ 
vented from extending their territory in 
Sumatra by conquest ; but this obstacle 
being removed, in 1871 they proceeded to 
occupy Acheen. It was not till 1S79, 
however, after a great waste of blood and 
treasure, that they obtained a general 
recognition of their authority. But they 


have not been able to establish it firmly, 
and in 1885 were forced to evacuate part 
of the Acheenese territory, with consider¬ 
able loss in men and guns. In the 
seventeenth century Acheen was a power¬ 
ful state, and carried on hostilities 
successfully against the Portuguese, but 
its influence decreased with the increase 
of the Dutch power. The principal ex¬ 
ports are rice and pepper. Area, 20,500 
sq. miles; population, 110,000 (by some 
estimated to be much larger). 

Achel0US (ak-e-lo'us), now Aspro- 
potamo, the largest river 
of Greece, rising on Mount Pindus, sep¬ 
arating iEtolia and Acarnania, and falling 
into the Ionian Sea. Achelous was the 
river-god of Greece. 

Achenbach (^en-b&ch), Andreas, 

was a distinguished and 
prolific German landscape and marine 
painter, born in 1815; died in 1910.— 
Oswald Achenbach, born 1827, died 
1905, brother of above, was also a dis¬ 
tinguished landscape painter. 

ApTipyip Achenium (a-ken', a-ke'ni- 
5 um), in botany a small, dry 
carpel containing a single seed, the peri¬ 
carp of which is closely^ 
applied but separable, 
and which does not open 
when ripe. It is either 
solitary or several 
achenia may be placed 
on a common receptacle, 
as in the buttercup. 

AcherOIl ( a k'e-ron), the ancient name 
of several rivers in Greece 
and Italy, all of which were connected 
by legend with the lower world. The 
principal was a river in Epirus, which 
passes through Lake Acherusia and flows 
into the Ionian Sea. Homer speaks of 
Acheron as a river of the lower world, 
and late Greek writers use the name 
to designate the lower world. 

Ach'iar, Atch 'ar, an Indian condi¬ 
ment made of the young 
shoots of the bamboo pickled. 

Achievement (a-chev'ment), in her¬ 
aldry, a term which 
may be applied to the shield of armorial 
bearings generally, but is usually applied 
to the shield or hatchment which is 
affixed to the house of persons lately de¬ 
ceased, to denote their rank and station. 
Achill or Eagle Island, the 

largest island on the Irish 
coast; separated from the mainland of 
^oonaught by a narrow sound; area, 
51,521 acres, mostly irreclaimable bog. 
Ine chief occupation of the natives is 
fishing. 

Achillae a, the milfoil genus of plants. 



Achene—Lettu ce 
and Ranunculus. 



Achilles 


Acierage 


A pill 11 pc (a-kil'ez), a Greek legendary 
hero, the chief character in 
Homer’s Iliad. His father was Peleus, 
ruler of Phthia in Thessaly, his mother 
the sea-goddess Thetis. When only six 
years of age he was able to overcome 
lions and bears. His guardian, Cheiron 
the Centaur, having declared that Troy 
could not be taken without his aid, his 
mother, fearing for his safety, disguised 
him as a girl, and introduced him among 
the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros. 
Her desire for his safety made her also 
try to make him invulnerable when a 
child’ by anointing him with ambrosia, 
and again by dipping him in the river 
Styx, from which he came out proof 
against wounds, all but the heel, by 
which she had held him. His place of 
concealment was discovered by Odysseus 
(Ulysses), and he promised his assistance 
to the Greeks against Troy. Accom¬ 
panied by his close friend, Patroclus, he 
joined the expedition with a body of fol¬ 
lowers (Myrmidons) in fifty ships, and 
occupied nine years in raids upon the 
towns neighboring to Troy, after which 
the siege proper commenced. On being 
deprived of his prize, the maiden BriseTs, 
by Agamemnon, he refused to take any 
further part in the war, and disaster 
attended the Greeks. Patroclus now 
persuaded Achilles to allow him to lead 
the Myrmidons to battle dressed in his 
armor. He was slain by Hector and 
Achilles vowed revenge on the Trojans, 
whom he attacked and drove back to their 
walls, slaying them in great numbers, 
chased Hector, who fled before him three 
times round the walls of Troy, slew him, 
and dragged his body at his chariot- 
wheels, but afterwards gave it up to 
Priam, who came in person to beg for it. 
He then performed the funeral rites of 
Patroclus, with which the Iliad closes. 
He was killed in a battle at the Scsean 
Gate of Troy by an arrow from the bow 
of Paris, which struck his vulnerable 
heel. In discussions on the origin of the 
Homeric poems the term Achilleid is 
often applied to those books (i, viii. and 
xi—xxii) of the Iliad in which Achilles 
is prominent, and which some suppose 
to have formed the original nucleus of 
the poem. 

Achilles Tendon, & 

strong tendon which connects the gas¬ 
trocnemius muscles of the calf of the leg 
with the heel, and may be easily felt 
with the hand. The origin of name will 
be understood from above article. 

A pTiillpc Tatin<* (a-kil'ez ta'shi-us), 
iicnmes latius a Greek romance 

writer of the fifth century a.d., belonging 

3—1 


to Alexandria ; wrote a love story called 
Leucippe and Cleitophon. 

ApVlirnpnp<i (a-kim'e-nez), a genus of 

iicnimenes tropical American plantSf 

with scaly underground tubers, nat. order 
Gesneraceae, now cultivated in European 
greenhouses on account of their orna¬ 
mental character. 

Achlamydeous (ak-la-mid'e-us), in 

botany, wanting the 
floral envelopes; that is, having neither 
calyx nor corolla, as the willow. 

Achor (a'kor), a disease of infants, 
in which the head, the face, 
and often the neck and breast become 
incrusted with thin, yellowish or greenish 
scabs, arising from minute, whitish 
pustules, which discharge a viscid fluid. 

Achromatic ( ^ r : J nd 

chroma, chromatos , 
color), in optics, transmitting colorless 
light; that is, light not decomposed into 
the primary colors, though having passed 
through a refracting medium. A single 
convex lens does not give an image free 
from the prismatic colors, because the 
rays of different color making up white 
light are not equally refrangible, and thus 
do not all come to a focus together, the 
violet, for instance, being nearest the 
lens, the red farthest off. If such a lens 
of crown-glass, however, is combined with 
a concave lens of flint-glass—the curva¬ 
tures of both being properly adjusted— 
as the two materials have somewhat 
different optical properties, the latter will 
neutralize the chromatic aberration of the 
former, and a satisfactory image will be 
produced. Telescopes, microscopes, etc., 
in which the glasses are thus composed 
are called achromatic. 

Acid ( as ^ d » Latin, acidus , sour), a 
name popularly applied to a num¬ 
ber of compounds, solid, liquid, and 
gaseous, having more or less the qualities 
of vinegar (itself a diluted form of acetic 
acid), the general properties assigned to 
them being a tart, sour taste, the power 
of changing vegetable blues into reds, of 
decbmposing chalk and marble with ef¬ 
fervescence, and of being in various de¬ 
grees neutralized by alkalies. An acid 
has been defined as a substance contain¬ 
ing hydrogen, which is partly or fully 
replaceable by a metal when presented in 
the form of a hydrate. The acid is dis¬ 
tinguished as being monobasic, dibasic , or 
tribasic, according to the number of 
hydrogen atoms replaced. 

Aplrtirnpfpv (as-id-im'e-ter), an in- 
iiCiaimeier strument for ascertain¬ 
ing the strength of acids. 

AplPrao’P (a'se-er-aj) (Fr. acier, 
® steel), a process by which 
an engraved copper plate or an electrotype 



Acipenser 


Acoustics 


from an engraved plate of steel or copper 
has a film of iron deposited over its sur¬ 
face by electricity in order to protect the 
engraving from wear in printing. By 
this means an electrotype of a fine en¬ 
graving, which, if printed directly from 
the copper, would not yield 500 good 
impressions, can be made to yield 3000 or 
more; and when the film of iron becomes 
so worn as to reveal any part of the 
copper, it may be removed and a fresh 
coating deposited so that 20,000 good 
impressions may be got. 

Apinpncpr (as-i-pen'ser), the genus of 
cartilaginous ganoid fishes 
to which the sturgeon belongs. 

Ani PaqIa (a'che ra-a'la) a seaport 

aci Jteaie of Sicily> northeast of 

Catania, a well-built town, with a trade 
in corn, wine, fruit, etc. In its vicinity 
are the cave of Polyhemus and grotto of 
Galatea. Pop. 35,418. (See next arti¬ 
cle.) 

A pic (a'sis), according to Ovid, a 
^ ° beautiful shepherd of Sicily, loved 
by Galatea, and crushed to death by his 
rival the Cyclops Polyphemus. His 
blood, flowing from beneath the rock 
which crushed him, was changed into a 
river bearing his name. 

Aclin'ic Line (Gr - priv * ®* klin6 > t0 

ALliniO incline), the magnetic 

equator, an irregular curve in the neigh¬ 
borhood of the terrestrial equator, where 
the magnetic needle balances itself hori¬ 
zontally, having no dip. 

Acne ( a k'ne), a skin disease, consist¬ 
ing of small, hard pimples, us¬ 
ually on the face, caused by congestion of 
the follicles of the skin. 

Apnlvfpc (ak'o-lits), in the ancient 

Latin and Greek c h urches , 

persons of ecclesiastical rank next in 
order below the subdeacons, whose office 
it was to attend to the officiating priest. 
The name is still retained in the Anglican 
and R. Catholic Churches. 
Aconcagua (a-kon-ka'gwd), a prov- 

® ince, a river, and a 
mountain of Chile. The peak of Acon¬ 
cagua, rising to the height of 23,080 feet 
is one of the highest summits of the 
western hemisphere. Area of province, 
about 6000 sq. miles. Pop. 131,255. 
Apnnifp (ak'o-nlt; aconitum), a genus 
ilCOmie Qf herbaceous plants, nat. 

order Ranunculaceae, represented by the 
well-known wolf’s bane or monk’s-hood, 
and remarkable for their poisonous prop¬ 
erties and medicinal qualities, being used 
internally as well as externally in rheu¬ 
matism, gout, neuralgia, fever, etc. See 
next article. 

Aconitine ( a -k°n'i-tin), an alkaloid 

zxouiiiniic extracted from monk > s _ 


hood and some other species of aconite; 
used medicinally, though a virulent 
poison. 

A ftfmmn* ( a *kon-ke'M), a range of 
nconquijd, mountains in the Argen¬ 
tine Republic; the name also of a single 
peak i7,000 feet high. 

Apnrn (a'korn), the fruit of the dif- 
xiisui l f erent hinds of oak. The acorn- 

cups of one species are brought from the 
Levant under the name of valonia, and 
used in tanning. 

Acorn-shell. See Balanus. 

ArnrvK (ak'o-rus), a genus of plants, 
including the sweet-flag. See 
Sweet-flag and Calamus. 

4-r, Gabriel, afterwards Uriel, a 
* Portuguese of Jewish de¬ 
scent, born 1590, died by his own hand 
1647. Brought up a Christian, he after¬ 
wards embraced Judaism. Having gone 
to Amsterdam, where he attacked the 
practices of the Jews, and denied the 
divine mission of Moses, he suffered much 
persecution at the hands of the Jews. He 
left an autobiography, published in 1687, 
under the title Exemplar Vitce Humance. 

Acotvledons (a-kot-i-le'duns), plants 
xioutyicuuna not furnished with coty . 

ledons or seed-lobes. They include ferns, 
mosses, sea-weeds, etc., and are also called 
flowerless plants or cryptogams. 

Acoustics (a-koo'stiks), the science of 
sound. It teaches the 
cause, nature, and phenomena of such 
vibrations of elastic bodies as affect the 
organ of hearing, the properties and 
effects of different sounds, including 
musical sounds or notes, and the structure 
and action of the organ of hearing, etc. 
The propagation of sound is analogous to 
that of light, both being due to vibrations 
which produce successive waves, and 
Newton was the first to show that its 
propagation through any medium de¬ 
pended upon the elasticity of that medium. 
Regarding the intensity, reflection, and 
refraction of sound, much the same rules 
apply as in light. Though the vibrations 
of sound are longitudinal in direction, 
while those of light are transverse, the 
rapidity of audible sound vibrations va¬ 
ries from about 16 to about 12,000 per sec¬ 
ond. In ordinary cases of hearing the vi¬ 
brating medium is air, but all substances 
capable of vibrating may be employed to 
propagate and convey sound. When a 
bell is struck its vibrations are communi¬ 
cated to the particles of air surrounding 
it, and from these to particles outside 
them, until they reach the ear of the lis¬ 
tener. The intensity of sound varies in¬ 
versely as the square of the distance of 
the body sounding from the ear. Sound 






Acqui 


Acrostic 


travels through the air at the rate of 
about 1090 feet per second ; through wa¬ 
ter at the rate of about 4700 feet. Sounds 
may be musical or non-musical. A musi¬ 
cal sound is caused by a regular series of 
exactly similar pulses succeeding each 
other at precisely equal intervals of time. 
If these conditions are not fulfilled the 
sound is a noise. Musical sounds are 
comparatively simple, and are combined 
to give pleasing sensations according to 
easy numerical relations. The loudness 
of a note depends on the degree to which 
it affects the ear; the pitch of a note 
depends on the number of vibrations to 
the second which produce the note; the 
timbre, quality, or character of a note 
depends on the body or bodies whose 
vibrations produce the sound, and is due 
to the form of the paths of vibrating 
particles. The gamut is a series of eight 
notes, which are called by the names Do, 
Re, Mi. Fa, So, La, Ti, Do 2 , and the 
numbers of vibrations which produce 
these notes are respectively proportional 
to 24, 27, 30, 32, 36, 40, 45, 48. The 
numerical value of the interval between 
any two notes is given by dividing one of 
the above numbers corresponding to the 
higher note by the number corresponding 
to the lower note. The intervals from Do 
to each of the others are called a second , 
a major third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a 
seventh, and an octave, respectively. The 
interval from La to Do, is a minor 
third. An interval of % is a major 
tone; V' * s a winor tone; yf is called a 
limma. The properties of sound were 
mathematically investigated by Bacon and 
Galileo, but it remained for Newton, 
Lagrange, Euler, Laplace, Helmholtz, etc., 
to bring the science to its present state. 
Apmn' (ak'we), a town of Northern 
Italy 18 miles s.s.w. of Alessan¬ 
dria, a bishop’s see. It has warm sul¬ 
phurous baths, which were known to the 
Romans, and which yet draw a great 
many visitors. Pop. 13,786. 
flrtvn (a'ker), a standard measure of 
land, used in the United States 
and Great Britain and its colonies. The 
acre consists of 4840 square yards, 
divided into 4 roods. The old Scotch 
acre contains 6146.8 square yards, the 
old Irish acre 7840 square yards. 

Anrp a disputed territory in South 
xxt-ic, America, lying on the Acre 
River between Bolivia and Brazil, and of 
great value as one of the most important 
rubber-bearing districts. The claim of 
possession has at times nearly led to war 
between the claimants, and the question 
of ownership remains unsettled. 

A nrp (ancient Accho and Ptolemais) , a 
seaport of Syria, in Northern 


Palestine, on the Bay of Acre, early a 
place of great strength and importance. 
Taken from the Saracens under Saladin 
in 1191 by Richard I of England and 
Philip of France ; bravely defended by the 
Turks assisted by Sir Sidney Smith in 
1799 against Napoleon; in 1832, taken 
by Ibrahim Pasha ; in 1840, bombarded 
by a British, Austrian, and Turkish fleet, 
and restored to the Sultan of Turkey. 
Pop. 11,000. 

Anri (a f kre), a town of S. Italy, prov. 
^ ■ L of Cosenza. Pop. about 4,000. 

A^rnr^-nliali (a-kro-sef'a-li), tribes of 
xiciuoepiicui men dist i ngui shed by 

pyramidal or high skulls. 

Acrocorinthus (a'kro-co-rin'thus), a 
Steep rock in Greece, 
nearly 1900 feet high, overhanging 
ancient Corinth, and on which stood the 
acropolis or citadel, the sacred fountain 
of Pirene being also here. This natural 
fortress has proved itself of importance 
in the modern history of Greece. 

Ac'roerens < - j e n z > ■ 1 ' *• summit- 

& growers, a term applied 
to the ferns, mosses, and lichens (crypto¬ 
gams), as growing by extension upwards, 
in contradistinction to endogens and ex¬ 
ogens. 

Apvnlpin (ak'ro-lln), the acrid prin- 
u c 1 ciple produced by the de¬ 
structive distillation of fatty bodies aris¬ 
ing from the decomposition of glycerine. 
It is a limpid liquid, boiling at 52.4°, its 
vapor being so irritating that a few drops 
in a room render the air insupportable. 
When mixed with a solution of potash or 
soda this irritating property disappears. 
An'vnliFh an early form of Greek 
Xllr AUA 1 f statuary in which the head, 
hands, and feet only were of stone, the 
trunk of the figure being of wood draped 
or gilded. 

Arrft-n'olis ( Gr - okros, high, and 
xioiopuiib poliS ' a city) the dtadel 

or chief place of a Grecian city, usually 
on an eminence commanding the town. 
That of Athens contained some of the 
finest buildings in the world, such as the 
Parthenon, Erechtheum, etc. 

Anvncfip (a-kros'tik), a poem of 
XIl/I UollO which the firgt or lagt< or 

certain other letters of the line, taken in 
order, form some name, motto, or sen¬ 
tence. A poem of which both first and 
last letters are thus arranged is called a 
double acrostic. In Hebrew poetry, the 
term is given to a poem, of which the ini¬ 
tial letters of the lines or stanzas, were 
made to run over the letters of the alpha¬ 
bet in their order, as in Psalm cxix.— 
Acrostics have been much used in com¬ 
plimentary verses, the initial letters giv¬ 
ing the name of the person eulogized. 



Act 


Act of Parliament 


A c f in special senses: (1) In dra- 
matic poetry, one of the principal 
divisions of a drama, in which a definite 
and coherent portion of the plot is repre¬ 
sented ; generally subdivided into smaller 
portions called scenes. The Greek dramas 
were not divided into acts. The dictum 
that a drama should consist of five acts 
was first formally laid down by Horace, 
and has been generally adhered to by 
modern dramatists in tragedy. In comedy 
no such distinction is observed.— (2) 
Something formally done by a legislative 
or judicial body; a statute or law passed. 
-—(3) In universities, a thesis maintained 
in public by a candidate for a degree. 
See Act of God, of Parliament , of Settle¬ 
ment, etc. 

Acta 

Roman 

both the republic and the empire. 
Actae'a. See Baneherry. 


Diur'na 


proceedings of 
day), a daily 
newspaper which appeared under 


ActseOIl ( ak -te'un), in Greek mythol¬ 
ogy, a great hunter, turned 
into a stag by Artemis (Diana) for look¬ 
ing on her when she was bathing, and 
torn to pieces by his own dogs. 

Acta Emdito'ruxn <£., acts of 

the learned), 
the first literary journal that appeared in 
Germany (1682-1782). Among the con¬ 
tributors, the most distinguished was 
Leibnitz. 


Acta Sancto'rum (L .> acts of the 

saints ), a name 
applied to all collections of accounts of 
ancient martyrs and saints, both of the 
Greek and Roman Churches, more par¬ 
ticularly to the valuable collection begun 
by John Holland, a Jesuit of Antwerp in 
1643, and which, being continued by other 
divines of the same order (Bollandists ), 
now extends to sixty volumes, the lives 
following each other in the order of the 
calendar. 

Actinia ( ak -tin'i-a), the genus of an¬ 
imals to which the typical 
sea-anemones belong. See Sea-anemone. 
Actinism ( ak 'tin-izm), the property 
... , of those rays of light 

which produce chemical changes, as in 
photography, in contradistinction to the 
light rays and heat rays. The actinic 
property or force begins among the green 
ra ys, is strongest in the violet rays, and 
extends a long way beyond the visible 
spectrum. 

Actinium (ak-tin'i-um), the name 
given by Dr. T. P. Phip- 
son in 1881 to a supposed metallic element 
discovered by him. The existence of this 
element is not now accepted by chemists, 
and the name of Actinium w r as given in 


1900 to a radio-active substance discov¬ 
ered by A. Delverne in the decomposition 
of pitchblende. It gives off the same 
rays as radium, but its emanation dies 
away very rapidly. It appears to belong 
to the iron group of elements. 

Apfinnli(ak-tin'o-lit), a mineral 

Acunonie nearly allied to horn _ 

blende. 

Actinograph Ok-tin'o-graf), an in- 

° r strument for measur¬ 
ing and recording the variations in the 
actinic force of the solar rays. 

Actinometer (ak-ti-nom'e-ttr), an 
instrument for meas¬ 
uring the intensity of the sun’s actinic 
rays. See Actinism. 

Action ( ak ' sk un), the mode of seek¬ 
ing redress at law for any 
wrong, injury, or deprivation. Actions 
are divided into civil and criminal, the 
former again being divided into real, per¬ 
sonal, and mixed. No suit can be brought, 
except in rare special cases, by a citizen 
against the United States. Relief must 
be sought in the Court of Claims, or by 
petition. By modern statutes many old 
forms of action have been abandoned. 

Actium ( ak ' s hi* um . ak'ti-um), a 
promontory on the western 
coast of Northern Greece, not far from 
the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf (Gulf 
of Arta), now called La Punta, memor¬ 
able on account of the naval victory 
gained here by Octavianus (afterwards 
the Emperor Augustus) over Antony 
and Cleopatra, September 2, b.c. 31, in 
sight of their armies, encamped on the op¬ 
posite shores of the gulf. Soon after the 
beginning of the battle Cleopatra fled 
with sixty Egyptian ships, and Antony 
basely followed her, and fled with her to 
Egypt. The deserted fleet w r as not over¬ 
come without making a brave resistance. 
Antony’s land forces soon went over to 
the enemy, and the Roman world fell to 
Octavianus. 

Act of Congress, °^ y sta b t ^ 

houses of the United States Congress and 
acceded to by the President, or passed 
over his veto. If pronounced unconstitu¬ 
tional by a decision of the Supreme Court 
an Act of Congress ceases to be valid. 

Act of God, < _ _t aa 

7 a direct, violent, sud¬ 
den, and irresistible act of nature, which 
could not, by any reasonable cause, have 
been foreseen or resisted.’ No one can be 
legally called upon to make good loss so 
arising. 

Act of Parliament, * . law or 

ceeding from the parliament of the United 
Kingdom, passed in both houses, and as- 




Act of Settlement 


Adam 


sented to by the king. Acts are either 
public or private, the former affecting the 
whole community, the latter only special 
persons and private concerns. The whole 
body of public acts constitutes the statute 
law. 

Act of Settlement, “ t a h f ^ 

parliament in 1700, by which the succes¬ 
sion to the throne of the three kingdoms, 
in the event of King William and Queen 
Anne dying without issue, was settled on 
the Princess Sophia, electress of Han¬ 
over, granddaughter of James I, and her 
heirs, with the restriction that they should 
be Protestants. By this act George I, 
son of the Princess Sophia, succeeded to 
the crown on the death of Queen Anne.— 
Another act of settlement was that by 
which, under Cromwell’s government, a 
new allotment was made of almost all 
landed property in Ireland, in 1652. 

Act of Uniformity, act 

enjoining upon all ministers to use the 
Book of Common Prayer on pain of for¬ 
feiture of their livings. See Nonconform¬ 
ists. 

Acton i a - k ' t T ) ’ ? 

kind of 
padded or quilted vest 
or tunic formerly 
worn under a coat of 
mail to save the body 
from bruises, or used 
by itself as a defensive 
garment. Jackets of 
leather or other ma¬ 
terial plated with 
mail were also so 
called. Oambeson 
was an equ i v a 1 e n t Q ai J5 ed Acton or the 
term H fifteenth century. 

Anfrm (ak'tun), a name of various 
xil/LUIl pi aces j n England, one of them 

a western suburb of London, with a pop. 
of 57,523. 

Aotor (ak'tur), one who represents 

some part or character on the 
stage. Actresses were unknown to the 
Greeks and Romans in the earliest times, 
men or boys always performing the' fe¬ 
male parts. They appeared under the 
Roman empire, however. Charles II first 
encouraged the public appearance of ac¬ 
tresses in England ; in Shakespere’s time 
there were none. See Drama. 

Acts of the Apostles, °“ 0 e ks °f ( “J 

New Testament, written in Greek by St. 
Luke, probably in a.d. 63 or 64. It em¬ 
braces a period of about thirty years, 
beginning immediately after the resurrec¬ 
tion, and extending to the second year of 
the imprisonment of St. Paul in Rome. 



Very little information is given regard¬ 
ing any of the apostles excepting St. 
Peter and St. Paul, and the accounts of 
them are far from being complete. 
Actuary ( ak 'tu-a-ri), an accountant 
v whose business is to make 
the necessary computations in regard to 
a basis for life assurance, annuities, re¬ 
versions, etc. 

A pul ah e (a-ku'le-us), in botany, a 
xiLUicua prickle> or sharp-pointed 

process of the epidermis, as distinguished 
from a thorn or spine, which is of a 
woody nature. 

Acupressure (ak-u-presh'ur) a 

P means of arresting 

bleeding from a cut artery, introduced by 
Sir James Simpson in 1859, and consist¬ 
ing in compressing the artery above the 
orifice, that is, on the side nearest the 
heart, with the middle of a needle (L. 
acus, a needle) introduced through the 
tissues. 


Acupuncture ( a -ku-pungk'tur), a 

P surgical operation, 

consisting in the insertion of needles into 
certain parts of the body for alleviating 
pain, or for the cure of different species 
of rheumatism, neuralgia, eye diseases, 
etc. It is easily performed, gives little 
pain, causes neither bleeding nor inflam¬ 
mation, and seems at times of surprising 
efficacy. 

Adagio (I ta li an * a-da'jo>, a musical 

6 term, expressing a slow time, 
slower than andante , but less so than 
largo. 


Adal a country in Africa, east 

of Abyssinia and northwestward 
of Tajurrah Bay, inhabited by a dark- 
brown race known as Afar or Dan&kil, of 
nomadic habits, Mohammedans in relig¬ 
ion ; towns Aussa and Tajurrah. 

Art olio (ad-a-lfa), a seaport on the 

XXUcllId, south coast of Agia Minor> 

Pop. est. 26,000-30,000. 

Adam ( a ' dam )* Adolphe Charles, a 
yxa French composer, more espe¬ 
cially of comic operas ; born 1803; died 
1856. Wrote Le Postilion de Lonjumeau 
and Le Brasseur de Preston (Brewer of 
Preston). 

Adam ( ad,am )> Albrecht, a German 
painter of battles and animals; 
born 1786; died 1862. Three sons of his 
have also distinguished themselves as 
painters, especially Franz, born 1815, 
among whose best pictures are several 
representing scenes of the Franco-German 
war. 

A Horn Alexander, a Scottish classical 
scholar, born in 1741, became in 
1768 rector of the High School of Edin¬ 
burgh, and died there in 1809. Wrote 
Principles of Latin and English Gram - 



Adam 


Adams 


mar; Roman Antiquities, a useful school¬ 
book ; Summary of Geography and His¬ 
tory; Classical Biography, etc. 

Adam Robert, an eminent Scottish 
* architect, was born in 1728,and 
died in 1792. In conjunction with his 
brother James he was much employed by 
the English nobility and gentry in con¬ 
structing modern and embellishing ancient 
mansions. His style, novel at the time, 
had the serious defect of excessive decora¬ 
tion. 

Adam and Eve, « 

first parents, an account of whom and 
their immediate descendants is given in 
the early chapters of Genesis. Cain, 
Abel, and Seth are all their sons that are 
mentioned by name; but we are told that 
they had other sons as well as daughters, 
and that Adam finally died at the age of 
930 years. There are numerous Rabbin¬ 
ical additions to the Scripture narrative 
of an extravagant character, such as the 
myth of Adam having a wife before Eve, 
named Lilith, who became the mother of 
giants and evil spirits. Other legends or 
inventions are contained in the Koran. 

Adam de la Hale, i n rif T' Iy 0 ^ rc “' h 

7 writer and mu¬ 
sician ; born 1240. died 1287. His Jeu de 
Robin et de Marion may be regarded as 
the first comic opera ever written. 

Adamant (ad'a-mant), an old name 
AuamaiiL for the diamond . also used 

in a vague way to imply a substance of 
impenetrable hardness. 

Adaman'tine Spar, » f ' h „ e 

* 7 mineral corun¬ 

dum or of a brownish variety of it. 
Adamawa ( a-da-maw'a), a region 
of Central Africa, be¬ 
tween lat. 6° and 11° n., and Ion. 11° and 
17° E. ; also called Fumbina. Much of 
the surface is hilly or mountainous, Mount 
Atlantitka being 9,000 or 10,000 feet. The 
principal river is the Benue. A great 
part of the country is covered with thick 
forests. The inhabitants are industrious 
and intelligent. Slaves and ivory are the 
chief articles of trade. Chief town and 
capital Yola. 

Adamites (ad'am-Its), a name of sects 
xiua or religious bodies that have 

appeared at various times: so called be¬ 
cause both men and women were said 
to appear naked in their assemblies, either 
to imitate Adam in the state of innocence 
or to prove the control which they pos¬ 
sessed over their passions. 

Adamnail (ad-am-nan'), St., born in 
AOdllUldil. Ireland or Scotland about 

624, was elected abbot of Iona in 679, and 
died there about 703 or 704. He is best 
known from his Life of St. Columba. 


Adame (ad'amz). a village and town- 
ship, Berkshire co., Massachus¬ 
etts, 20 miles from Pittsfield. Graylock 
or Saddle Mountain (3,535. feet), the 
highest point in the state, is in the town¬ 
ship. It has manufactures of cotton, 
wool, iron, paper, etc. Pop. of township 
13,026. See North Adams. 

Ad'ame Charles Francis, American 
9 litterateur and statesman, 
born in 1807, was a son of John Quincy 
Adams. His youthful years were spent 
in Europe, partly in England: but he 
finished his education at Harvard, and 
afterwards studied law. After serving 
some years in the Massachusetts legisla¬ 
ture he was elected to Congress in 1858. 
In 1861 he was sent to England as 
American minister, and showed much tact 
and ability, under the difficult conditions 
arising from the Civil war. He edited 
a complete edition of the works of John 
Adams, his grandfather, with a biography. 
He was one of the arbitrators on the Ala¬ 
bama claims. Died in 1886. 

Ad'am*? Charles Kendal, instructor 
* and author, born Derby, Ver¬ 
mont, in 1835; graduated at the Univer¬ 
sity of Michigan in 1861, when he became 
in 1863 assistant professor and in 1868 
full professor of history. Was professor 
of history at Cornell College in 1881-85 
and president 1885-92; then president of 
University of Wisconsin. Author of 
Democracy and Monarchy in France: 
editor-in-chief of revised edition of John¬ 
son’s Universal Cyclopedia. Died in 1902. 
AdamQ John, second president of the 
xiuctina, United States, was born at 
Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, 
19th October, 1735. He was educated 
at Harvard University, and adopted the 
law as a profession. His attention was 
directed to politics by the question as to 
the right of the English parliament to 
tax the colonies, and in 1765 he published 
some essays strongly opposed to the 
claims of the mother country. As a mem¬ 
ber of the new American Congress in 
1774, 1775, and 1776 he was strenuous 
in his opposition to the home government, 
and in organizing the various departments 
of the colonial government. On 13th 
May, 1776, he seconded the motion for a 
declaration of independence proposed by 
Lee of Virginia, and was appointed a 
member of committee to draw it up. 
The Declaration was actually drawn up 
by Jefferson, but it was Adams who 
handled it in Congress. In 1778 he went 
to France on a special mission, and spent 
in all nine years abroad as representative 
of his country in France, Holland, and 
England. After taking part in the peace 
negotiations, he was appointed, in 1785, 



Adams 


Adam’s Bridge 


the first ambassador of the United States 
to the court of St. James. He was re¬ 
called in 1788, and in the same year 
elected vice-president of the republic 
under Washington. In 1792 he was re¬ 
elected vice-president, and at the follow¬ 
ing election in 1796 was chosen president 
in succession to Washington. The pop¬ 
ulation was then divided into two 
parties, the Federalists, who favored 
aristocratic and were suspected of mon¬ 
archic views, and the Republicans. 
Adams adhered to the former party, with 
which his views of government had always 
been in accordance, but the real leader of 
the party was Hamilton, with whom 
Adams did not agree, and who tried to 
prevent his election. His term of office 
proved a stormy one, which broke the 
strength of the Federalist party. He was 
a candidate in 1800, but was defeated by 
the Republican candidate, Thomas Jef¬ 
ferson. Events took place in the adminis¬ 
tration of Adams that greatly diminished 
his popularity and on leaving office he 
sunk into the obscurity of private. life. 
He had the consolation, however, of living 
to see his son president. He died 5th 
July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the 
declaration of independence, and on the 
same day as Jefferson. His works have 
been ably edited by his grandson, Charles 
Francis Adams. 

Adam* John Couch, an English 
nud astronomer, born in 1819, 
studied at Cambridge, and was senior 
wrangler in 1843. His investigations in¬ 
to the irregularities in the motion of the 
planet TJranus led him to the conclusion 
that they must be caused by another more 
distant planet, and the results of his 
labors were communicated in September 
and October, 1845, to Professor Challis 
and Airy, the astronomer royal. The 
French astronomer Leverrier had been 
engaged in the same line of research, and 
had come to substantially the same re¬ 
sults, which, being published in 1846, led 
to the actual discovery of the planet 
Neptune by Galle of Berlin. In 1858 
Adams was Lowndean professor of as¬ 
tronomy and geometry at Cambridge. 
Died Jan. 24, 1892. 

Arlcnnc John Quincy, sixth president 
/lUdiiifc, 0 £ t k e United States, son of 
John Adams, second president, was born 
11th July, 1767. Accompanying his 
father to Europe, he received part of his 
education there, but graduated at Har¬ 
vard in 1788. Having adopted the legal 
profession, in 1791 he was admitted to the 
bar. Some letters that he wrote having 
attracted general attention, in 1794 Wash¬ 
ington appointed him minister to The 
Hague. He afterwards was sent to 


Portugal, and by his father to Berlin. In 
1798 he received a commission to negoti¬ 
ate a treaty of commerce with Sweden. 
On the accession of Jefferson to the 
presidency in 1801 he was recalled. The 
Federalist party (that of his father), 
which was now declining, had sufficient 
influence in Massachusetts to elect him to 
the senate in 1803. On an important 
question of foreign policy, that of em¬ 
bargo, he abandoned his party, and 
resigned his seat on this account He 
was appointed to the professorship of 
rhetoric at Cambridge, which he held 
from 1806' to 1809. In 1809 he went as 
ambassador to Russia. He assisted in 
negotiating the peace of 1814 with Eng¬ 
land, and was afterwards appointed 
resident minister at London. Under Mon¬ 
roe as president he was secretary of state, 
and at the expiration of Monroe’s double 
term of office he succeeded him in the 
presidency (1825). He was not very 
successful as president, and at the end of 
his term (1829) he was not re-elected. 
In 1831 he was returned to Congress by 
Massachusetts, and continued to represent 
this state till his death, his efforts being 
now chiefly on behalf of the abolitionist 
party. He died 23d February, 1848. 

Aria me Samuel, an American states- 
nudiiia, man, second cousin of Presi¬ 
dent John Adams, -was born in Boston, 
27th Sept., 1722, and was educated. at 
Harvard College. He early devoted him¬ 
self to politics, and in connection with 
the dispute between America and the 
mother country he showed himself one of 
the most unwearied, efficient, and disinter¬ 
ested assertors of American freedom and 
independence. He was one of the signers 
of the Declaration of 1776, which .he 
labored most indefatigably to bring for¬ 
ward. He sat in Congress eight years, 
in 1789-94 was lieutenant-governor of 
Massachusetts, in 1794-97 governor, when 
he retired from public life. He died Oct. 
2 1803 

Adam’s Apple, ‘J; e p°p uI f name of 

PP 9 the prominence seen 
in the front of the throat in man, and 
which is formed by the portion of the 
larynx known as the thyroid cartilages , 
one on each side, joining in the front. It 
contains the larynx, the organ of speech. 
It is much smaller and less visible in 
females than in males, and is so named 
from the idle notion that it was caused 
by a piece of the forbidden fruit having 
stuck in Adam’s throat. 

Adam’s Bridge, ^anVUdt: 

lands stretching between India and 
Ceylon: so called because the Moham¬ 
medans believe that when Adam was 



Adam’s Needle 


Addington 


driven from paradise he had to pass by 
this way to Ceylon (where is also Adam’s 
Peak). 

Adarn’q Nppdle a P°P ular name of 
iiaam s iaiccuic, the Yucca plant 

Adam’s Peak, one " f - the £ igl ? est 

> mountains in Ceylon, 
45 m. east-southeast of Colombo, conical, 
isolated, and 7,420 feet high. On the top, 
a rocky area of 64 feet by 45, is a hollow 
in the rock 5 feet long bearing a rude 
resemblance to a human foot, which the 
Brahmans believe to be the footprint of 
Siva, the Buddhists that of Buddha, the 
Mohammedans that of Adam. Devotees 
of all creeds here meet and present their 
offerings (chiefly rhododendron flowers) to 
the sacred footprint. The ascent is very 
steep, and towards the summit is assisted 
by steps cut and iron chains riveted in the 
rock. 

Ad'amsirm Patrick, a Scottish divine 
nu diubuu, and Latin poet . born 1543f 

died in 1592. He was educated at St. 
Andrews, lived some years in France, 
was minister of Paisley, and afterwards 
Archbishop of St. Andrews, in which posi¬ 
tion he made himself very obnoxious to 
the Presbyterian party. 

A<l ana (ad'a-na), an ancient town of 
southeastern Asia Minor, on 
the Sihun, which is here navigable, 30 m. 
from the Mediterranean, well built, and 
with considerable trade. Pop. estimated 
at about 60,000, largely Armenians. 
Many were massacred in 1909 by Mo¬ 
hammedans during the revolutionary 
movement in Turkey. 

Adanson U-dafl-sos), Michel, French 
xxuanauii naturalist and traveler (of 

Scottish extraction) ; born 1727, died 
1806. He lived five years in Senegal, and 
wrote a natural history of this region as 
well as works on botany. The baobab 
genus is named Adansonia. after him. 

Adanso'nia. See Preceding art. and 
Baobab. 

Adar ( a 'dar), the twelfth month of 
the Hebrew sacred and sixth of 
the civil year, answering to part of Feb¬ 
ruary and part of March. 

Adda (8d'd&, ancient Addua), a 
river of North Italy, which, 
descending from the Rhaetian Alps, falls 
into Lake Como, and leaving this joins 
the Po, after a course of about 170 
miles. 

Adda* a s P ec * es of lizard, more com- 
1 monly called skink. 

Ad'damS. ^ ANE » social reformer; born 
9 Cedarville, Illinois, in 1860; 
opened in 1889 the social settlement of 
Hull House, Chicago; has done admirable 
work in uplifting the poor and ignorant 
of that city; has lectured on social and 



Head of Addax ( Hippo - 
tr&gus nasomaculatus). 


political reform. Author of Democracy 
and Social Ethics. 

Ad'daX a s P ec * es antelope (Hip- 
xxu ua ) potragus nasomaculatus) , of 

the size of a 
large ass, which 
it res e m b 1 e s. 

The horns of 
the male are 
about 4 feet 
long, beautifully 
twisted into a 
wide-swee ping 
spiral of two 
turns and a 
half, with the 
points directed 
outwa r d s. It 
has tufts of hair 
on the forehead 
andthroat, 
and large, broad hoofs. It inhabits the 
sandy regions of Nubia and Kordofan, 
and is also found in Caffraria. 

Adder ( a d'der), a name often applied 
iiuu.ci tQ tbe common viper as well as 

to other kinds of venomous serpents. See 
Viper. 

Adder-pike th ? 

weever fish, called also the Lesser Weever 
or Sting-fish. See Weever. 

A rMpr-c+rmp the name given in dif- 

iiaaer sione, ferent parts of Britain 

to certain rounded perforated stones or 
glass beads found occasionally, and sup¬ 
posed to have a kind of supernatural effi¬ 
cacy in curing the bites of adders. They 
are believed to have been anciently used 
as spindle-whorls, that is, a kind of small 
fly-wheels to keep up the rotatory motion 
of the spindle. 

A rlrlAr , c-+rmo’n a a species of common 

iiaaer s longue, fern {0phioglossum 

vulgdtum) whose spores are produced 
on a spike, supposed to resemble a ser¬ 
pent’s tongue. 

AHHpr’si-wnrt a name of snakeweed 

Adder s wort, or bistort {Polyg6num 

bistorta ), from its supposed virtue in 
curing the bite of serpents. 

Afl'fli'nO’tn'n Henry, Viscount Sid- 
® 9 mouth, born in 1755, died 

1844. Entered parliament, 1783, as a 
warm supporter of Pitt. Was elected 
speaker of the House of Commons, 1789, 
and in 1801 invited by the king to form 
an administration, chiefly signalized by 
the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens. 
Quarrelled with Pitt, whom he bitterly 
attacked. Was home secretary from 1812 
till 1822, his repressive policy making him 
remarkably unpopular with the nation 
at large. Retired from official life in 
1824. 



Addison 


Address 


AilMkon Joseph, an eminent English 
AU UAbU11 > essayist, son of the Rev. 
Lancelot Addison, afterwards dean of 
Lichfield, born at Milston, Wiltshire, 1st 
May, 1672 died 17th June, 1719. He 
was educated at the Charterhouse, where 
he became acquainted with Steele, and 
afterwards at Oxford. He held a fellow¬ 
ship from 1697 till 1711, and gained 
much praise for his Latin poetry and 
other contributions to classical literature. 
He secured as his earliest patron the poet 
Dryden, who inserted some of his verses 
in his Miscellanies in 1693. A transla¬ 
tion of the fourth Georgia appeared in 
the same collection in 1694, and he subse¬ 
quently translated for it two and a half 
books of Ovid. Dryden also prefixed 
Addison’s prose essay on Virgil’s Georgies 
to his own translation of that poem, 
which appeared in 1697. An early patron 
of his was Charles Montague, afterwards 
Earl of Halifax; another was Lord 
Somers, "who procured him a pension of 
£300 a year to enable him to qualify for 
diplomatic employments by foreign travels. 
He spent from the autumn of 1699 to that 
of 1703 on the Continent, where he be¬ 
came acquainted with Malebranche, 
Boileau, etc. During his residence abroad 
his tragedy of Cato is supposed to have 
been written. During his journey across 
Mount Cenis he wrote his Letter from 
Italy, esteemed the best of his poems, and 
in Germany his Dialogues on Medals , 
which was not published till after his 
death. His Remarks on Several Parts of 
Italy in the Years 1701-3 was published 
in 1705. His political friends lost power 
on the death of William III, but The 
Campaign, a poem on the battle of 
Blenheim, procured him an appointment 
as a commissioner of appeal on excise. 
In 1706 he received an undersecretary¬ 
ship, in 1707 accompanied Halifax on a 
mission to Hanover, in 1709 became sec¬ 
retary to the viceroy of Irpland, and 
keeper of the records. In 1708 he was 
elected m. p. for Lostwithiel, a seat he ex¬ 
changed in 1710 for Malmesbury, which 
place he continued to represent till his 
death. From October, 1709, to January, 
1711, he contributed 75 papers to the Tat- 
ler, either wholly by himself, or in con¬ 
junction with Steele, thus founding the 
new literary school of the Essayists. For 
the Spectator (2d January, 1711, to 6th 
December, 1712) he wrote 274 papers, all 
signed by one of the four letters C., L., I., 
O. He contributed also to other period¬ 
icals ; his tragedy of Cato , produced April, 
1713, ran for twenty nights, and was 
translated into French, Italian, German, 
and Latin. On the death of Queen Anne 
he successively became secretary to the 


lords justices, secretary to the Irish 
viceroy, and one of the lords commission¬ 
ers of trade. In August, 1716, he married 
the Countess of Warwick, which marriage 
is said to have been uncomfortable. He 
retired from public life, March, 1718, with 
a pension of £1500 a year. He formed a 
close friendship with Swift, and was chief 
of a distinguished literary circle. He had 
literary quarrels with Pope and Gay, the 
former of whom in revenge wrote the 
satire contained in his lines on Atticus in 
the epistle to Arbuthnot. He also had a 
paltry quarrel over politics with his 
ancient comrade Steele. His death took 
place at Holland House, its cause, being 
dropsy and asthma. He w r as buried in 
Westminster Abbey. Of his style as a 
writer so much has been said that nothing 
remains to say but to quote the dictum of 
Johnson, 1 Whoever wishes to attain an 
English style, familiar but not coarse, 
and elegant but not ostentatious, must 
give his days and nights to the volumes 
of Addison.’ 

Addison’s Disease i?o™; 

Guy’s Hospital, London, who traced the 
disease to its source), a fatal disease, the 
seat of which is the two glandular bodies 
placed one at the front of the upper part 
of each kidney, and called suprarenal 
capsules. It is characterized by anaemia 
or bloodlessness, extreme prostration, and 
a brownish or olive-green color of the 
skin. Death usually results from weak¬ 
ness, and commonly within a year. 
A/lrlrACiQ (ad-dres'), Forms of. The 
,n ‘ u,u following are the principal 
modes of formally addressing titled per¬ 
sonages or persons holding official 
rank. 

Ambassador. —The title ‘ Excellency * 
belongs specially to ambassadors and to 
United States ministers to a foreign court. 
Address letters ‘His Excellency* (with 
name or distinctive title following). Be¬ 
gin, ‘ Sir,* ‘ My Lord,’, according as the 
ambassador possesses title or not. When 
personal reference is made, say * Your Ex¬ 
cellency.’ An envoy extraordinary or 
charge d’affaires, though inferior to an 
ambassador strictly so called, also, usually 
receives the title ‘Excellency;’ and the 
waves of ambassadors are generally ad¬ 
dressed similarly during their husbands’ 
tenure of office and while residing abroad. 

Archbishop. —Address: ‘ The most 
Reverend A— B—, D.D.’ The wife of an 
archbishop has no special title. 

Bishop. —Address : ‘ The Right Rev. 

Bishop,’ or * The Rt. Rev. A— B—. D.D.’ 
A bishop’s wife and family have no spec¬ 
ial title. 

Cardinal. —The special title of a car- 



Address 


Adelaide 


dinal as such is ‘ His Eminence.’ Begin: 

‘ Your Eminence.’ 

Clergyman. —The general form of ad¬ 
dress is ‘ The Reverend A— B.’ Begin: 

‘ Rev. Sir,’ or simply * Sir.’ 

Congress, Members of, —Are ad¬ 
dressed generally ‘ The Honorable A— 
B—.* 

Consul. —There is no special form of 
address to a person as such though in 
this country a consul is called ‘ Honor¬ 
able.’ 

Doctor. —The initials denoting the par¬ 
ticular degree are placed after the usual 
form of address, whether D.D., LL.D., 
M.D., D.Sc., etc.. ‘ The Rev. A—, B.—, 
D.D.,’ ‘ A—B, Esq.. M.D.’ Less form¬ 
ally : 4 The Rev. Doctor B—* Doctor 
A— B.’ 

Duke. —Address : ‘ His Grace the Duke 
of—.’ Begin : ‘ My Lord Duke refer to 
as 4 Your Grace.’ All the children of a 
duke are entitled to be called ‘ Right Hon¬ 
orable.’ 

Governors of States, —Are usually 
addressed as * His Excellency.’ ‘ His Ex¬ 
cellency A— B—, Governor of —,’ or, 

* His Excellency the Governor of—.’ A 
lieutenant-governor is called ‘ Honorable.’ 

Judge. — 4 His Honor, Judge —’ (sur¬ 
name) ; on the bench referred to as * Your 
Honor.’ 

King. —Should be addressed as ‘ The 
King’s Most Excellent Majesty.’ Begin: 

* Sire,’ or ‘ May it please Your Majesty 
refer to as ‘ Your Majesty.’ 

Lawyers. —Address : * Esquire.’ or * Mr. 
A— B—, Esq.’ This is a complimentary 
title given to all holding temporary civil 
offices, as magistrates, councilmen, etc. 

Married Lady. —Has the title Mrs. pre¬ 
fixed to her name in speaking and writ¬ 
ing. On being approached in writing or 
speech by strangers or inferiors, should 
be addressed as ‘ Madam,’ or ‘ Dear Mad¬ 
am.’ An unmarried lady is addressed as 
‘ Miss,’ in speaking or writing. Fre¬ 
quently 4 Madam ’ if advanced in years. 
Two or more unmarried ladies are ad¬ 
dressed as 4 The Misses A— B—,’ while 
4 Mesdames ’ is plural for * Madam.’ 

Mayor. —Address: ‘ The Honorable 
Mayor of —.’ Address : 4 Sir.’ or ‘ Dear 
Sir.’ Mayors are usually styled ‘ Honor¬ 
able * The Honorable A— B, Mayor 
of —. 

Member of House of Representa¬ 
tives. —Address : 4 Honorable A— B—, 
M.C.’ Begin: 4 Sir,’ or 4 Dear Sir.’ A 
Congressman’s wife and family have no 
title of recognition. 

Member of Parliament. —Not speci¬ 
ally recognized except by adding 4 M.P.’ to 
ordinary address : 4 A— B—. Esq 

M.P 4 Sir A— B—, Bart. M.P.’ 


Officers, Military and Naval.— 
Their professional rank is put before 
any title they may independently pos¬ 
sess : 4 General ’ or 4 Admiral the Right 
Hon. the Earl of—, 4 Colonel A— 
B—.’ 

President (U. S.).—Address: 4 His 
Excellency the President of the United 
States,’ 4 His Excellency A— B—, Presi¬ 
dent of the United States.’ The Vice- 
President and ex-presidents are 4 Honor¬ 
able 4 The Honorable the Vice-Presi¬ 
dent 4 The Honorable A— B.’ 

Prince. —-Address: 4 His Royal High¬ 
ness the Prince of Wales 4 His Royal 
Highness Prince A—’ (Christian name). 
Begin in any case: 4 Sir; ’ refer to as 
4 Your Royal Highness.’ 

Princess. —Address: 4 Her Royal 
Highness the Princess of Wales. 4 Her 

Royal Highness the Princess A—’ 
(Christian name) ; Begin: 4 Madam re¬ 
fer to as 4 Your Royal Highness.’ 

Professor. —-A form of address for a 
scholar who has achieved distinction in 
some snecial deDartment of science or 
learning; but should not be employed in¬ 
discriminately to any teacher or school¬ 


master. 

Queen. —Address : 4 The Queen’s Most 
Excellent Majesty.’ Begin 4 Madam,’ or 
4 May it please Your Majesty; ’ refer to 
as 4 Your Majesty.’ 

Arlfluetnr (a-duc'tur), a muscle which 
liUClUOlUI (j raws one par t 0 f the body 

towards the center; applied in zoology to 
one of the muscles which bring together 
the valves of the shell of the bivalve 
molluscs. 

Adel'. See Adal. 


ArlplsnrlA (ad'e-lad), the capital of 

Aueidiue gouth Australia 6 m}les 

east from Port Adelaide (on St. Vincent 
Gulf), its port, with which it is united by 
railway, founded in 1836, and named after 
the queen of William IV. Situated on a 
large plain, it is built nearly in the form 
of a square, with the streets at right 
angles, and is divided into North and 
South Adelaide, separated by the river 
Torrens, which is crossed by several 
bridges, and by means of a dam is con¬ 
verted into a fine sheet of water. The 
public buildings comprise the Govern¬ 
ment House, the town hall, the post and 
telegraph offices, the government offices, 
courthouses, the houses of legislature, the 
university, South Australian Institute, 
etc. There is a complete service of 
electric cars. Adelaide is connected by 
railway with Melbourne, and is the ter¬ 
minus of the overland telegraph to Port 
Darwin. It has a large trade. Pop. (in¬ 
cluding suburbs), 162,261. 




Adelard of Bath 


Adenoids 


Adelard of Bath, an p ng ! ish p. 1 ! 11 * 

> osophical writer 
of the twelfth century. He traveled 
through Spain, north of Africa, Greece 
and Asia Minor, and acquired much 
knowledge from the Arabs, which he put 
in systematic shape. Chief works, Per- 
difficiles Quwstiones Naturales and De 
Eodem et Diverso. 

AHplchprcr (a'delz-ber/i), a small town 
21UClbUeig of Southern Austria, in 

Carniola, midway between Trieste and 
Laibach, remarkable for the wonderful 
stalactite cave in its vicinity. The most 
extended of the ramifications of the cave 
reaches to over 2 miles from the en¬ 
trance, at which the river Poik disap¬ 
pears, and is heard rushing below. 

A dpi inner (ad'e-lung), Johann Chris- 
21U.clU.llg toph, a German philologist: 
born 1732 ; died 1806. In 1759 he was 
appointed professor in the Protestant 
academy at Erfurt, and two years after 
removed to Leipzig, where he applied 
himself to the works by which he made 
so great a name, particularly his German 
dictionary, Grammatisch - kritisches 
Worterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart 
(Leipzig, 1774-86), and his Mithridates , 
a work on general philology. In 1787 he 
was appointed librarian of the public 
library in Dresden—an office which he 
held till his death.— Friedrick von 
Adeltjng, nephew of the above, also dis¬ 
tinguished himself as a philologist. Was 
tutor to the Grand Duke Nicholas, after¬ 
wards Emperor of Russia, and became 
president of the Academy of Sciences at 
St. Petersburg. Born in 1768; died in 
1834. 

AHph (a'den) a seaport town and ter- 
xiucii r jt ory belonging to Britain, on 
the southwest coast of Arabia, in a dry 
and barren district, the land side being 
almost entirely closed in by an amphi¬ 
theater of rocks, and possessing an admir¬ 
able harbor. Occupying an important 
military position, Aden is strongly forti¬ 
fied and permanently garrisoned. It is 
of importance also as a coaling station 
for steamers, and carries on a large com¬ 
merce in Arabian coffee, textiles, hides, 
petroleum, etc. The peninsula on which 
it stands somewhat resembles the rock 
of Gibraltar, and has been rendered as 
formidable. Aden was a Roman colony, 
and in the middle ages it was a great 
entrepot of the Eastern trade. It was 
acquired by Britain in 1839, after which 
it was attacked repeatedly by the Arabs. 
The total area of the settlement including 
the island of Perim, is 80 sq. miles. Pop. 
(including Perim), 43,974. 

Adenanthera ( g f n '*“' a Sf trees ’and 

shrubs, natives of the East Indies and 


Ceylon, nat. order Leguminosae. A. pa- 
vonia is one of the largest and hand¬ 
somest trees of India, and yields hard, 
solid timber called red sandalwood. The 
bright-scarlet seeds, from their equality 
in weight (each = 4 grains), are used by 
goldsmiths in the East as weights. 

AH pni tic (ad-en-i'tis; Gr. aden , a 
Xxuciii Lio gi an( }) 5 j n medicine, inflam¬ 
mation of the lymphatic glands. 

A H AnniHc (ad'i-noidz) is a term ap- 
2i.ueil.UlUb plied tQ enlargements of 

the so-called pharyngeal, or Luschka’s 
tonsil, which, however, is not, strictly 
speaking, a tonsil, but rather a collection 
of small lymph glands in the upper part 
of the posterior wall of the naso-pharynx. 
There are many of these small glands 
and when inflamed by any of the 
causes mentioned below they enlarge 
rapidly. Adenoids always exist when 
the tonsils are enlarged. By pressing on 
the nasal orifice of the eustachian tube, 
a musculo-membranous canal of small 
lumen connecting the middle part of the 



Location of Infantile Adenoids. 
a. Adenoids: b, nasal cavities; c, turbinated 
bones in nasal cavities. 

ear with the nasal cavities, they cause 
a more or less chronic inflammation called 
eustachian catarrh, which may extend 
through the tube to the middle part 
of the ear, producing a stuffy feeling 
in the ear, of which the child usually 
complains that it ‘ hurts ’; deafness ; sup¬ 
puration or abscess or ‘ running ear,’ and 
more or less permanent impairment of 
hearing. The adenoids interfere with the 
passage of air through the nose and naso¬ 
pharynx, being in some instances suffi¬ 
ciently large to entirely occlude the nasal 
passageway, compelling the child to 
breathe through his mouth, which makes 















Adenoids 


Adirondack Mountains 


•the mouth and larynx dry, and is one 
cause of cough. The enlargement of the 
tonsils, which accompanies it, produces 
constant cough in some children. The 
mouth breathing produces a characteristic 
facial expression, showing parted, thick¬ 
ened lips, prominent eyeballs, obliteration 
of the normal lines of expression, and a 
consequent appearance of listlessness and 
inferiority. Noisy respiration, snoring, 
diminished or absent vocal resonance; 
thickness of speech, with a nasal twang; 
absent-mindedness, apparent inattention 
(which may be due to mental dullness or 
impaired hearing or both, consequent upon 
the adenoids), inability to fix the atten¬ 
tion, and defective memory are conditions 
presented by the child. These children 
are very backward in school, and the 
condition is frequently attributed to 
other than the real cause. The letters 
m, n and ng sometimes cannot be pro¬ 
nounced. The presence of the glands thus 
enlarged keeps up a continuous irritation 
in the mucous membrane in the nose and 
throat, leading to a chronic catarrh, with 
the persistent discharge of a thick, yel¬ 
lowish, mucopurulent secretion through 
the nose and downwards into the throat. 
This condition is almost impossible to 
cure while the adenoids remain, and is 
another cause of cough. If the condition 
has existed for some time, a narrow, 
pinched appearance of the nose results, 
and a narrowing of the upper jaw, to¬ 
gether with a high arching of the roof of 
the mouth, thus reducing the breathing 
space within the nose. Bed-wetting is a 
frequent result of the condition. The 
tendency to the disease rapidly dimin¬ 
ishes after the fifteenth year, and it is 
virtually absent from the adult. Adenoids 
are caused by repeatedly catching cold, 
long-continued cold in nose or throat, 
scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria and 
whooping cough. Heredity is a predis¬ 
posing factor of variable consequence. 
The disease is becoming constantly more 
prevalent among children. The adenoid 
enlargement is always a condition con¬ 
comitant with hypertrophied tonsils, 
both gland tissues being components of 
the general glandular system of the 
human body. The superficial position of 
these glands, being covered by mucous 
membrane only, subjects them to at¬ 
tacks of infectious bacteria, which so 
frequently gain entrance to the mouth. 
In fact, a great many varieties of bac¬ 
teria can be found in the mouths of 
human beings at all times, ready to start 
up disease should a congestion occur, 
which would permit them to enter the 
tissues. It is in this manner that a 
cold starts up an infectious disease, of 


which this and tonsillitis are examples. 
The Micrococcus catarrhalis is one of 
the known causes of inflammations that 
lead to hypertrophy of the pharyngeal 
and tonsillar glands. It is treated 
by surgical removal, which, when thor¬ 
oughly done, usually prevents subsequent 
recurrence, though occasionally it may 
recur in slight form if some small glands 
remain after the excision. Bacterial vac¬ 
cines, composed of from 30,000,000 to 
100,000,000 killed bacteria of the same 
variety as had caused the disease, are 
now being used to cure the disease, and 
some success has resulted therefrom. 
Stuttering and stammering are sometimes 
cured by the removal of the adenoids 
and hypertrophied tonsils, together with 
the direct results above given, and the 
child promptly assumes his normal stand¬ 
ing in his school studies. 


Adprnn (a-der-no') a town of Sicily. 

18 miles n. w. of Catania and 
about 10 miles w. s. w. of Mount iEtna. 
Pop. 25,859. 


Adersbach Rocks <ri l rz :l' s - h - a re : 

markable group of 

isolated columnar rocks on the frontiers 

of Bohemia and Silesia, occupying several 

square miles of territory. 

Adhpsiori (ad-he'zhun), the tendency 
AUIiCblUIl of two bodies t0 gtick t0 _ 

getlier when put in close contact, or the 
mutual attraction of their surfaces; dis¬ 
tinguished from cohesion, which denotes 
the mutual attraction between the parti¬ 
cles of a homogeneous body. Adhesion 
may exist between two solids, between 
a solid and a fluid, or between two fluids. 

Adian'tum, a * en “ s . of , feri > s : the 

7 maidenhair fern (g. v.). 
Adiffe (a'de-ja), German Etsch (an- 
o cient Athesis), a river of North¬ 
ern Italy, which rises in the Rhsetian 
Alps, and after a south and east course 
of about 180 miles, during which it passes 
Verona and Legnago, falls into the 
Adriatic, forming a delta connected with 
that of the Po. 


Adipocere (ad'i-po-ser), (L. adeps, 

r tat, and cera wax), a 

substance of a light-brown color formed 
by animal matter when protected from 
atmospheric air, and under certain cir¬ 
cumstances of temperature and humidity. 

Ad'ipose Tissue, the ceUuhir tissue 

r 7 containing the oilv 

or fatty matter of the body. It under¬ 
lies the skin, surrounds the large ves¬ 
sels and nerves, invests the kidneys, etc., 
and sometimes accumulates in large 
masses. 


Adiron'dack Mountains, a lar « e 

A . 7 m o u n- 

tain group belonging to the Appalachian 




Adit 


Administrator 


chain extending from the n. e. corner of 
the State of New York to near its centre. 
The scenery is wild and grand, diversified 
by numerous beautiful lakes, and the 
whole region is a favorite resort of sports¬ 
men and tourists. Mount Marcy (5,345 
ft.) is the highest peak. A State forest 
reserve, intended to protect the upper 
waters of the Hudson, occupies the 
greater part of the region. 

Ad'it a more or l ess horizontal opening 
, giving access to the shaft of a 
mine. It is made to slope gradually from 
the farthest point in the interior to the 
mouth, and by means of it the principal 
drainage is usually carried on. See 
Mine. 

Adiective (ad'jek-tiv), in grammar, a 
•J . word used to denote some 
quality in the noun or substantive to 
which it is accessory. The adjective is 
indeclinable in English (but has degrees 
of comparison), and generally precedes 
the noun, while in most other European 
languages it follows the inflections of the 
substantive, and is more commonly placed 
after it, though in German it precedes it, 
as in English. 

Adjudication 

ing something to a litigant by a judicial 
sentence. 

A rlinc+mpnf (ad-just'ment). in marine 
X1UJ UbLIIieilb insurance , is the settling 

of the amount of the loss which the 
insurer is entitled under a particular 
policy to recover, and, if the policy is 
subscribed by more than one underwriter, 
of the amounts which the underwriters 
respectively are liable to pay. 

Adllltant (ad'ju-tant), an oflicer ap- 
auj ULd pointed to each regiment or 

battalion, whose duty is to assist the 
commander. He is charged with instruc¬ 
tion in drill, and all the interior dis¬ 
cipline, duties, and efficiency of the corps. 
He has the charge of all documents and 
correspondence, and is the channel of 
communication for all orders. 

Adintant bird Leptoptilus argdla, a 
Adjutant Dir a, large grallatoria i or 

wading bird of the stork family, native 
of the warmer parts of India, where it 
is known as Hurgila Argala. It stands 
about five feet high, has an enormous 
bill, nearly bare head and neck, and a 
pouch hanging from the under part of the 
neck. It is one of the most voracious car¬ 
nivorous birds known, and in India, from 
its devouring all sorts of carrion and 
noxious animals, is protected by law. 
From underneath the wings are obtained 
those light, downy feathers known as 
marabou feathers, from the name of an 
allied species of bird (L . marabou) in¬ 


habiting Western Africa, and also pro¬ 
ducing them. 



Adjutant-bird ( Leptoptilus argSla). 

Adjutant-general,^ ^ a s ** 

charged with the execution of all orders 
relating to the recruitment, equipment, 
and efficiency of the troops, and who 
distributes to them the orders of the day. 
—Among the Jesuits this name was given 
to a select number of fathers, who resided 
with the general of the order, and had each 
a province or country assigned to him. 

A/I'lev TVHy ethical reformer ; born 
AU 1CI, XC1IA, of Jewigh desC ent in 

Germany in 1851; graduated at Columbia 
College, New York. He was professor 
of oriental languages and literature at 
Cornell University 1874-76, when . he 
organized in New York the Ethical 
Society, an organization of free religion¬ 
ists, which has spread to other cities. He 
is still a lecturer in this society; has pub¬ 
lished Creed and Deed and other works. 

Ad Libitum (Hb'i-tum), a musical 
AU Ail U11 lull term signifying that the 

part so marked may be played according 
to the taste of the performer and not 
necessarily in strict written time; also 
that an instrument in instrumental scores 
may be either played or left out. 

Arimptnc (ad-me'tus), in Greek 
AameiUb m y thol ogy. King of Phene, 

in Thessaly, and husband of Alcestis, who 
gave signal proof of her attachment by 
consenting to die in order to prolong 
her husband’s life. See Alcestis. 

Administration ;• s ' tr % huD ' ’ 

in politics, the ex¬ 
ecutive power or body, the ministry or 
cabinet, the term of office of a President. 

Administrator, * 







Admiral 


Adonis 


a man dying intestate are committed by 
the proper authority, and who is bound 
to account when required. 

Admiral (ad'mi-ral), the commander- 
XlUiiilidi in _ chief of a sqU adron or 

fleet of ships of war, or of the entire 
naval force of a country, or simply a 
naval officer of the highest rank. In the 
British navy admirals are of four ranks 
—admiral of the fleet, admiral, vice- 
admiral, and rear-admiral.—The title 
admiral of the fleet is conferred on a few 
admirals, and carries an increase of pay 
along with it. A vice-admiral is next in 
rank and command to an admiral; he 
carries his flag at the foretopgallantmast 
head, while an admiral carries his at the 
main. A rear-admiral , next in rank to 
the vice-admiral, carries his flag at the 
mizzentopgallantmast head.— Lord high 
admiral , in Great Britain, an officer who 
(when this rare dignity is conferred) is 
at the head of the naval administration of 
Great Britain. The rank of admiral was 
not known in the United States navy 
until 1862, when the office of rear- 
admiral was created and conferred first 
upon Farragut, for his services at New 
Orleans ; vice-admiral was created for him 
in 1864, and admiral in 1866. The offices 
of admiral and vice-admiral, were sub¬ 
sequently borne by David D. Porter, but 
discontinued after the death of the latter 
in 1891, until 1899, when the former was 
re-created for Dewey for his services in 
the harbor of Manila. 

Ad'miraltv. that department of the 
J y government of a country 
that is at the head of its naval service. 
In Britain the lords commissioners of the 
admiralty were formerly seven, but are 
now five in number, with the addition of 
a civil lord, at the head being the first 
lord, and four others being naval lords. 
The U. S. District Court exercises juris¬ 
diction over all maritime contracts, 
torts, injuries, or offenses. In certain 
cases causes may be removed from this 
court to the Circuit and Supreme 
Courts. 


Admiralty Court, ?, court which 

. J 1 takes cognizance 

of civil and criminal causes of a maritime 
nature, including captures in war made, 
and offenses committed, on the high seas, 
and has to do with many matters con¬ 
nected with maritime affairs. In Eng¬ 
land the admiralty court was once held 
before the lord high admiral, and at a 
later period was presided over by his 
deputy or the deputy of the lords com¬ 
missioners. In the United States admir¬ 
alty cases are taken up in the first in¬ 
stance by the District Court, from which 
they may be removed in certain cases to 


the Circuit and ultimately to the Supreme 
Court. 

Admiralty Island,- 1 ^& 

States off the northwest coast of North 
America, 80 or 90 miles long and about 
20 broad, covered with fine timber and 
inhabited by Sitka Indians. 

Admiralty Islands, f a *" % 

New Guinea, in Bismarck Archipelago, 
now belonging to Germany. The largest 
is about 60 miles in length ; the rest are 
much smaller. They are covered with a 
luxuriant vegetation, and possess dense 
groves of cocoanut trees. The islanders 
are of a tawny color, have no metal (un¬ 
less what is imported), but use tools of 
stone and shell. 

Adnate < a f“ at >. in 

botany, a p- 
plied to a part growing 
attached to another and 
principal part by its 
whole length, as stipules 
adnated to the leaf-stalk. 

Adobe the 

Spanish name j Adnate anther, 
for a brick made . ot 2, Adnate stipule, 
loamy earth, containing 
about two-thirds fine sand and one-third 
clayey dust, sun-dried : in common use for 
building in Mexico, Texas, and Central 
America. 

'tvhuS JoHN ’ 1766-1845, an able 
r ’ English criminal lawyer, 
and author of the History of England 
from the Accession of George III and 
Biographical Memoirs of the French 
Revolution. 




Adolphus of Nassau, * 1 ® r c 0 t * d of f 

many, 1292. In 1298 the college of 

electors transferred the crown to Albert 

of Austria, but Adolphus refusing to 

abdicate a war ensued, in which he fell, 

after a heroic resistance, July 2, 1298. 

Adnncn (ad'o-nl), a name of God 
xxuuiicti among the Jews> gee Jehovah ' 

AdOIli (a-do'ne) a town of Madras 
presidency, British India, popu¬ 
lation 30,416. Well known for excellent 
silk and cotton fabrics. 

Adoilis ( a_ do'nis), a mythological per¬ 
sonage, originally a deity of 
the Phoenicians, but borrowed into Greek 
mythology. He was represented as being 
a great favorite of Aphrodite (Venus), 
who accompanied him when engaged in 
hunting, of which he was very fond. He 
received a mortal wound from the tusk 
of a wild boar, and when the goddess 
hurried to his assistance she found him 
lifeless, whereupon she caused his blood 
to give rise to the anemone. The worship 



Adonis 


Adrian 


of Adonis, which arose in Phoenicia, 
latterly was widely spread round the 
Mediterranean. The name Adonis is akin 
to the Hebrew Adonai, Lord. See Tam- 
muz. 

Arln'niQ a small river rising in 
uu ’ Lebanon and flowing to the 
Mediterranean. When in flood it is 
tinged of a red color, and so is connected 
with the legend of Adonis. 

AHn'niQ a genus of ranunculaceous 
uu 9 plants. In the corn-adonis 
or pheasant’s eye (A. autumndlis ) the 
petals are bright scarlet like the blood of 
Adonis, from which the plant is fabled to 
have sprung. 

Adoptiani (a-dop-shi-a'ni) a relig- 
r ious sect which asserted 

that Christ, as to his divine nature, was 
properly the Son of God ; but as to his 
human nature, only such by adoption. 
Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo, and 
Felix, bishop of Urgel, in Spain, avowed 
this doctrine in 783, and made proselytes 
both in Spain and France. The heresy 
was condemned by several synods. 

A rl mvH rm (a-dop'shun), the admis- 

xidoption sion of a stranger by birth 

to the privileges of a child. Among the 
ancient Greeks and Romans, and also 
some modern nations, adoption is placed 
under legal regulation. In Rome the 
effect of adoption was to create the legal 
relation of father and son, just as if the 
person adopted were born of the blood of 
the adopter in lawful marriage. The 
adopted son took the name of his adopter, 
and was bound to perform his new 
father’s religious duties. Adoption is not 
recognized by the law of England and 
Scotland ; there are legal means to enable 
a person to assume the name and arms, 
and to inherit the property of another. 
In some of the United States adoption is 
regulated by laws not very dissimilar to 
what prevailed among the Romans. 

A dour (a-dor), a river of France, 
xiuuux rising in the Pyrenees, and 
falling into the sea a little below Ba¬ 
yonne ; length about 200 miles; partly 
navigable. 

Adnwa (&'do-wa). a town of Abys- 
auuwa sinia, in Tigrg, at an elevation 
of 6270 feet; the chief commercial depot 
on the caravan route from Massowa to 
Gondar. Pop. about 3,000. 

Adra (a'dra), a seanort of Southern 
xxu Spain, in Andalusia, near the 
mouth of the Adra, on the Mediterranean ; 
with marble quarries and lead works. 
Pop. 11,188. 

AAvq mxr+i (a-dra-me'te) (ancient 
210.1 Alliy ti Adramyttium ; the Turkish 

Edremid), a town of Turkey in Asia, 
near the head of the gulf of the same 


name, 80 miles north of Smyrna. Pop. 
about 5000. 

Adrar, or Aderar th “ 

Western Sahara peopled by Berbers pos¬ 
sessing camels, sheep, and oxen, and cul¬ 
tivating dates, wheat, barley, and melons. 
Chief towns, Wadan and Shingit. It has 
inexhaustible beds of rock-salt. 

Adria (a'dri-fi), a cathedral city of 
Northern Italy, province of 
Rovigo, between the Po and the Adige, 
on the site of the ancient town of same 
name, whence the Adriatic derived its 
appellation. Owing to alluvial deposits 
the sea is now 17 miles distant. Pop. 
15,678. 

Adrian (a'dri-an), the name of six 
xxuii.au popeg The firgt a Roman 

ruled from 772-795: a contemporary and 
friend of Charlemagne. He expended 
large sums in rebuilding the walls and 
restoring the aqueducts of Rome.— 
Adrian II, a Roman, was elected pope 
in 867, at the age of seventy-five years. 
He died in 872, in the midst of conflicts 
with the Greek Church.— Adrian III, a 
Roman, elected 884, was pope for one 
year and four months only. He was the 
first pope that changed his name on the 
occasion of his exaltation.— Adrian IV, 
originally named Nicolas Breakspear, 
the only Englishman that ever occupied 
the papal chair, was born about 1100. and 
died 1159. He was a native of Hertford¬ 
shire, studied in France, and became 
abbot of St. Rufus in Provence, cardinal 
and legate to Norway. Chosen pope in 
1154, his reign is chiefly remarkable for 
his almost constant struggle for suprem¬ 
acy with Frederick Barbarossa, who on 
one occasion had been forced to hold his 
stirrup, and had been crowned by him at 
Rome (1155). He issued the famous bull 
(1158) granting the sovereignty of Ire¬ 
land, on condition of the payment of 
Peter’s pence, to Henry II.— Adrian V, 
previously called Ottoboni da Fiesco, of 
Genoa, settled, as legate of the pope, the 
dispute between King Henry III of Eng¬ 
land and his nobles in favor of the 
former, but died a month after his elec¬ 
tion to the paDal chair (1276).— Adrian 
VI. born at Utrecht in 1459, was elected 
to the papal chair. January 9, 1522. He 
tried to reform abuses in the church, to 
restrain the zeal of Luther with re¬ 
proaches and threats, and even attempted 
to excite Erasmus and Zuinglius against 
him. Died 1523, after a reign of one year 
and a half. 

A'rlrian capital of Lenawee Co., Mmh- 
u ’ igan, 73 miles w. s. w. of De¬ 
troit. It has abundant water power anrl 
large industries, including wire fence 



Adrian 


Adulteration 


works, electrical supply factory, piano 
and organ factory, etc. There is an ex¬ 
tensive shipping trade in e-rain, fruits, 
etc. Here are Adrian College and the 
State Industrial School for girls. Pop. 
10,763. 

A'Hrian Publius JElius Hadrianus. 

a uiidii, gee Hadrian 

Adrianople (a , d ‘ ri pT a ' p i\ ) (Turk ‘ 

r ish Edreneh ), an im¬ 
portant city of Turkey in Europe, about 
135 miles w. n. w. from Constantinople, 
on the Maritza (ancient Hebrus), at its 
junction with the Tundja and the Arda. 
It has a great mosque, among the most 
magnificent in the world; a palace, now 
in a state of decay; a grand aqueduct, 
and a splendid bazaar; manufactures of 
silk, woolen, and cotton stuffs, otto of 
roses, leather, etc., and an important 
trade. Adrianople received its present 
name from the Roman emperor Adrian 
(Hadrian). In 1361 it was taken by 
Amurath I, and was the residence of 
the Turkish sovereigns till the conquest 
of Constantinople in 1453. In 1829 it 
was taken by the Russians, and here was 
then concluded the peace of Adrianople 
by which Russia received important ac¬ 
cessions of territory in the Caucasus and 
on the coast of the Black Sea. The Rus¬ 
sians occupied it also in 1878. Popula¬ 
tion (1905) about 1,000,000. 

Adrian S "Willi. See Roman Walls. 

Adriatic Sea (ad-ri-at'ik), or gulf 

of Venice, an arm of 
the Mediterranean, stretching in a north¬ 
westerly direction from the Straits of 
Otranto, between Italy and the Turkish 
and Austrian dominions. Length, about 
480 miles; average breadth, about 100; 
area, about 60,000 square miles. The 
rivers which it receives, particularly the 
Po, its principal feeder, have produced, 
and are still producing great geological 
changes in its basin by their alluvial de¬ 
posits. Hence Adria, between the Po 
and the Adige, which gives the sea its 
name, though once a flourishing seaport, 
is now 17 miles inland. The principal 
trading ports, on the Italian side are 
Brindisi, Bari, Ancona, Sinigaglia, and 
Venice; on the east side Ragusa, Fiume, 
Pirano, Pola, and Trieste. 

Adscripti Glebge (ad-skrip'ti gle'- 

, be) (L., per¬ 

sons attached to the soil), a term applied 
to a class of Roman slaves attached in 
perpetuity to and transferred with the 
land they cultivated. Colliers and salt 
workers in Scotland were in a similar 
position till 1775. 

Adsorption (? d :. sor P' shun )’ a spe- 

P cialized form of the word 


absorption, applied to the condensation of 
a gas or vapor on the surface of a solid, 
This condensing power of solids was first 
discovered from the difficulty of main¬ 
taining a high vacuum, it appearing that 
a film of air was condensed upon the sur¬ 
face of the glass and was gradually given 
off into the vacuum. By heating the 
vessel while making the exhaustion this 
difficulty was largely overcome. Ad¬ 
sorption is ascribed to molecular attrac¬ 
tion and adhesion of the gas. From this 
cause a solid body appears to weigh less 
when recently heated than when allowed 
to stand long in ordinary temperature. 
Adularia (ad-u-la'ria), a very pure, 
limpid, translucent variety 
of felspar, called by lapidaries moonstone, 
on account of the play of light exhibited 
by the arrangement of its crystalline 
structure. Found on the Alps, but the 
best specimens are from Ceylon. So 
called from Adula, one of the peaks 
of St. Gothard, where specimens are 
got. 

Adllle (d-do'le), Adu'lis. See Zulla . 

Aduriam, £ AVF 0F - * cave to which 
7 David fled when perse¬ 
cuted by Saul, and whither he was fol¬ 
lowed by ‘ every one who was in distress, 
in debt, or discontented ’ (I Sam., xxii, 1, 
2). The name Adullamites was given 
to an English political party, consisting 
of Mr. R. Lowe, Lord Elcho, and other 
Liberals, who opposed the majority of 
their party on the Franchise Bill of 1866. 
The term originated from a speech of Mr. 
John Bright. 

Adulteration (a-dul-ter-a'shun), a 
. . term applied not only 

in its proper sense to the fraudulent mix¬ 
ture of articles of commerce, food, drink, 
drugs,. seeds, etc., with noxious or in¬ 
ferior ingredients, but also by magistrates 
and analysts to accidental impurity, and 
even in some cases to actual substitution. 
The chief objects of adulteration are to 
increase the weight or volume of the ar¬ 
ticle, to give a color which either makes 
a good article more pleasing to the eye 
or else disguises an inferior one, to sub¬ 
stitute a cheaper form of the article, one 
from which the strength has been ex¬ 
tracted, or one given a false strength.— 
Many adulterations are practised for the 
purpose of fraudulently increasing the 
weight or volume of an article. Bread is 
adulterated with alum or sulphate of 
copper, which gives solidity to the gluten 
of .damaged or inferior flour; with chalk 
or carbonate of soda to correct the acidity 
of such flour; and with boiled rice or 
potatoes, which enables the bread to carry 
more water, and thus to produce a larger 



Adultery 


Adventists 


number of loaves from a given quantity 
of flour. Wheat flour is adulterated with 
other inferior flours. Milk is usually 
adulterated with water. The adultera¬ 
tions generally present in butter consist 
of an undue proportion of salt and water, 
lard, tallow, and other fats. Genuine 
butter should not contain less than SO per 
cent, of butter-fat. Tea is adulterated 
(chiefly in China) with sand, iron-filings, 
chalk, gypsum, China clay, exhausted 
tea leaves, and the leaves of the sycamore, 
horse-chestnut, and plum. Coffee is 
mingled with chicory, roasted wheat, 
roasted beans, acorns, mangel-wurzel, rye- 
flour, and colored with burned sugar and 
other materials. Cocoa and chocolate are 
mixed with the cheaper kinds of arrow- 
root, animal matter, corn, sago, tapioca, 
etc. Confections are adulterated with 
flour and sulphate of lime. Preserved 
vegetables are kept green and poisoned 
bj 7 salts of copper. The acridity of mus¬ 
tard is commonly reduced by flour, and 
the color of the compound is improved by 
turmeric. Pepper is adulterated with 
linseed-meal, flour, mustard husks, etc. 
Color is given to pickles by salts of cop¬ 
per, acetate of copper, etc. The adultera¬ 
tion of liquors and wines is very com¬ 
monly practised, a great variety of sub¬ 
stances being used, for this purpose, in¬ 
ferior wines being in this way often sub¬ 
stituted for high-priced ones. Medicines, 
such as jalap, opium, rhubarb, cin¬ 
chona bark, scammony, aloes, sarsa¬ 
parilla, squills, etc., are mixed with vari¬ 
ous foreign substances; castor-oil adul¬ 
terated with other oils; and inferior oils 
mixed with cod-liver oil.—The adultera¬ 
tion of seeds is also largely practised. 
Acts against adulteration have been 
passed in various countries and at various 
times, laws of this kind in Britain going 
back as far as 1267. The most recent 
and one of the most far-reaching of these 
laws is the Pure Food Act, passed by the 
United States Congress in 1906 and 
taking effect January 1, 1907. This re¬ 
quires that all articles of food or medi¬ 
cine offered for sale shall be labeled so as 
to show their exact contents, under 
penalty of fine and imprisonment. 
Arhil+prv (a-dul'ter-i), the voluntary 

Aauiiery gexual intercourse of a 

married person with any other than the 
offender’s husband or wife. When com¬ 
mitted between two married persons, the 
offense is called double, and when between 
a married and single person, single adul¬ 
tery. The Mosaic, Greek, and early Ro¬ 
man law recognized the offense only when 
a married woman was the offender. By 
the Jewish law it was punished with 
death. In Greece the laws against it 
4—1 


were severe. By the laws of Draco and 
Solon adulterers, when caught in the act, 
were at the mercy of the injured party. 
In early Rome the punishment was left 
to the discretion of the husband and 
parents of the adulteress. The punish¬ 
ment assigned by the Lex Julia, under 
Augustus, was banishment or a heavy 
fine. Under Constantius and Constans, 
adulterers were burned or sewed in sacks 
and thrown into the sea; under Justinian 
the wife was to be scourged, lose her 
dower, and be shut up in a monastery; 
at the expiration of two years the hus¬ 
band might take her again ; if he refused 
she was shaven and made a nun for life. 
By the ancient laws of France this crime 
was punishable by death. In Spain per¬ 
sonal mutilation was frequently the pun¬ 
ishment adopted. In several European 
countries adultery is regarded as a crim¬ 
inal offense, but in none does the punish¬ 
ment exceed imprisonment for a short 
period, accompanied by a fine. In Eng¬ 
land formerly it was punishable with 
fine and imprisonment, and in Scotland 
it was frequently made a capital offense. 
In Great Britain at the present day, 
however, it is punishable only by ecclesi¬ 
astical censure. In the United States 
the punishment of adultery has varied 
materially at different times. It is, how¬ 
ever, very seldom punished criminally in 
the States. 


Ad valo'rem Oft., according to the 
value), a term applied 
to customs or duties levied according to 
the worth of the goods, as sworn to by the 
owner, and not according to number, 
weight, measure, etc. 

Advance note, % draft on 1 the OWI !? r 

7 of a vessel, generally 
for one month’s wages, given by the 
master to the sailors on their signing the 
articles of agreement. 

Advancement of Science. | m e eri ® 

can and British Associations. 

ArUvpnt (Latin adventus, an arrival, 
nu VC1AU * the coming of our Sa¬ 
viour’), the name applied to the holy 
season which occupies the four or, accord¬ 
ing to the Greek Church, six weeks pre¬ 
ceding Christmas, and which forms the 
first portion of the ecclesiastical year, as 
observed by the Anglican, the R. Catholic 
and the Greek Church. 

Adventists (ad'ven-tists), a small re¬ 
ligious sect of the United 
States, who believe in the speedy coming 
of Christ, and generally practise adult 
immersion.—A more numerous sect is 
that called Seventh-day Adventists , who 
hold that the coming of Christ is at hand, 
and maintain that the Sabbath is still the 



Adverb 


iEgadean Islands 


seventh day of the week. See Seventh- 
Day Adventists. 

Ad'vprh one ^e parts of speech 
‘ n,u J used to limit or qualify the 

signification of an adjective, verb, or 
other adverb; as, very cold, naturally 
brave, much more clearly, readily agreed. 
Adverbs may be classified as follows:—1, 
adverbs of time, as now, then, never, etc.; 

2, of place, as, here, there, where, etc.; 

3, of degree, as, very, much, nearly, al¬ 
most, etc.; 4, of affirmation, negation, or 
doubt, as, yes, no, certainly, perhaps, 
etc.; 5, of manner, as well , badly, clearly , 
etc. 

Advertisement (ad-ver'tiz-ment), . a 

notice given to in¬ 
dividuals or the public of some fact, the 
announcement of which may affect either 
the interest of the advertiser or that of 
the parties addressed. The vehicle em¬ 
ployed is generally special bills or plac¬ 
ards and notices inserted in newspapers 
and periodicals, and the profit derivable 
from advertisements forms the main sup¬ 
port of the newspaper press. Advertis¬ 
ing has grown to a surprising extent, and 
is still growing, not only in the news¬ 
papers, but in boats, railway cars, and 
public buildings, on fences, rocks, and 
trees. The city papers are now of eight, 
twelve, sometimes twenty-four or more 
pages, of which more than half the space 
is occupied by advertisements. The ex¬ 
tent and seeming extravagance of Amer¬ 
ican advertising is astonishing to Euro¬ 
peans. 

Advocate (ad'vo-kat) (L. advocatus 
— ad, to, voco, to call), a 
lawyer authorized to plead the cause of 
his clients before a court of law. It is 
only in Scotland that this word seems 
to denote a distinct class belonging to the 
legal profession, the advocates of Scot¬ 
land being the pleaders before the su¬ 
preme courts.—The Lord Advocate, called 
also the King's or Queen’s Advocate, is 
the principal law officer of the crown in 
Scotland. He is the public prosecutor of 
crimes in the Supreme Court, and senior 
counsel for the crown in civil causes. Be¬ 
ing appointed by the crown, he goes out 
of office with the administration to which 
he belongs. As public prosecutor he is 
assisted by the solicitor-general and by 
four junior counsel called advocates- 
depute. In the United States and Eng¬ 
land an advocate is usually termed a 
counsel, counselor, or attorney-at-law. 

Advocates’ Library, * he c V ie l ]i * 

. J ’ brary in Scot¬ 
land, located in Edinburgh, and founded 
about 1682 by the Faculty of Advocates, 
but long open to public use. In 1709 it 
obtained, along with eight other libraries, 


the right to a copy of every new book 
published in Britain, which right it still 
possesses. The number of volumes is 
over 265,000 and MSS. over 3000. 

Advoca'tus Diab'oli£££’■,*£ 

Roman Catholic Church, a functionary 
who, when a deceased person is pro¬ 
posed for canonization, brings forward 
and insists upon all the weak points of 
the character and life of the deceased, 
endeavoring to show that he is not worthy 
of sainthood. The opposite side is taken 
by the Advocatus Dei, God’s advocate. 

Advowson< ad " vou ' zn) ’ in 

iiuvuw&un law> a right of presentation 
to a vacant benefice, or, in other words, 
a right of nominating a person to officiate 
in a vacant church. Those who have this 
right are styled patrons. Advowsons are 
of three kinds— presentative , collative, 
and donative: presentative, when the 
patron presents his clerk to the bishop of 
the diocese to be instituted; collative, 
when the bishop is the patron, and in¬ 
stitutes or collates his clerk by a single 
act; donative, when a church is founded 
by the king, or any person licensed by 
him, without being subject to the ordi¬ 
nary, so that the patron confers the bene¬ 
fice on his clerk without presentation, in¬ 
stitution, or induction. 

Advtum (ad'i-tum), a secret place of 
* retirement in the ancient 

temples, esteemed the most sacred spot; 
the innermost sanctuary or shrine. From 
this place the oracles were given, and 
none but the priests were permitted to 
enter it. The Holy of Holies or Sanctum 
Sanctorum of the Temple at Jerusalem 
was of this character. 

Adze a . cu . ttin g instrument used for 
’ chipping the surface of timber, 
somewhat of a mattock shape, and hav¬ 
ing a blade of steel forming a portion 
of a cylindrical surface, with a cutting 
edge at right angles to the length of the 
handle. 

iEdileS (®'dilz), Roman magistrates 
who had the supervision of the 
national games and spectacles; of the 
public edifices, such as temples (the name 
comes from cedes, a temple) ; of private 
buildings, of the markets, cleansing and 
draining the city, etc. 
iEdui (e'du-i), one of the most power- 
# ful nations of Gaul, between the 

Liger (Loire) and the Arar (Saone). 
On the arrival of Julius Caesar in Gaul 
(b. c. 58), they were subject to Ariovis- 
tus, but their independence was restored 
by Caesar. Their chief town was Bi- 

bracte (Autun). 

iEgadean Islands («-«a-de'an), a 

° group of small 



iEgagrus 


tineas 


islands lying off the western extremity of 
Sicily, and consisting of Maritimo, Favig- 
nana, Levanso, and Le Formiche. 

o>rnc (e-gag'rus), a wild species 
& & us> of ibex ( Capra cegagrus ), 
found in troops on the Caucasus and 
many Asiatic mountains, believed to be 
the original source of at least one va¬ 
riety of the domestic goat. 

-ffigean Sea ( t fr js £ n k that P art . .°. f 

° the Mediterranean which 

washes the eastern shores of Greece, the 
southern coast of Turkey, and the west¬ 
ern coast of Asia Minor. See Archipel¬ 
ago. 

-ZEsiloPS (e'ji-lops), a genus of 
° grasses, very closely allied to 

wheat, and somewhat remarkable from 
the alleged fact that by cultivation one 
of the species becomes a kind of wheat. 
.ZEfHYia (e-jl'na), a Greek island in the 
® Gulf of Egina, south of 
Athens, triangular in form; area about 
32 square miles; pop. 7,000. Except in 
the west, ■where the surface is more level, 
the island js mountainous and unproduc¬ 
tive. The inhabitants are chiefly engaged 
in. trade, seafaring, and agriculture, the 
chief crops being almonds, olives, and 
grain. The greater number of them re- 
side. in the seaport town of Egina. 
Egina was anciently colonized by Dor¬ 
ians from the opposite coast of Pelopon¬ 
nesus. In the latter half of the sixth 
century b. c. it had a flourishing com¬ 
merce, a large navy, and was the seat of a 
distinct school of art. At the battle of 
Salamis (480 b. c.) the Eginetans be¬ 
haved with great valor. In 456 the is¬ 
land fell under the power of the Athen¬ 
ians, and in 431 the Eginetans were ex¬ 
pelled to make room for Athenian settlers, 
but -were afterwards restored. On a hill 
are the remains of a splendid temple of 
Athena (Minerva), many of the columns 
of which are still standing. Here were 
found in 1811 a number of marble statues 
(the AEginetan marbles), which are now 
at Munich, and are prized as throwing 
light on the early history of Greek art. 
Though in these figures there is a won¬ 
derfully exact imitation of nature, yet 
there is a certain stiffness about them 
and an unnatural sameness of expression 
in all. They should probably be assigned 
to the period 500-480 b. c. 

TFp’is (e'jis), the shield °f Zeus, ac- 
cording to Homer, but according 
to later writers and artists a metal cui¬ 
rass or breastplate, in which was set the 
head of the Gorgon Medusa, and with 
which Athena (Minerva) is often fig¬ 
ured as being protected. In a figurative 
sense the word is used to denote some 
shielding or protecting power. 


^e'gle), a genus of plants. See 
.ZEfrosnotami (e-gos-pot'a-mi), 

-fUgUbpuicUlll (4goat rivers>) a place 

on the Hellespont, of some note in Greek 
history, the Athenian fleet being here 
completely defeated in 405 b. c. by the 
Spartan Lysander, thus ending the Pelo¬ 
ponnesian war. 

-ZElfric (al'frik), Abbot, called Gram¬ 
maticus (the grammarian), 
was a celebrated English author of the 
eleventh century. He became a monk of 
Abingdon, was afterwards connected with 
Winchester, and died Abbot of Ensham. 
His principal works are two books of 
homilies, a Treatise on the Old and Neio 
Testaments, a translation and abridgment 
of the first seven books of the Bible, a 
Latin Grammar and Glossary, etc. He 
has been frequently confounded both with 
Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
Elfric, Archbishop of York, who lived 
about the same time. 

TEliflrmc (e-li-a'nus), Claudius, of- 
-£UlicUIUS> ten cal]ed simply ^, LIAN a 

Roman author who lived about a. d. 221, 
and wrote in Greek a collection of stories 
and anecdotes and a natural history of 
animals. 


JElst a Belgian town, same as 

Alost. 

TEriPflC (e-ne'as), the hero of Virgil’s 
JEneid, a Trojan, who, accord¬ 
ing to Homer, was, next to Hector, the 
bravest of the warriors of Troy. When 
that town was taken and set on fire, 
..Eneas, according to the narrative of 
Virgil, with his father, son, and wife 
Creusa, fled, but the latter was lost in 
the confusion of the flight. Having col¬ 
lected a fleet he sailed for Italy, but after 
numerous adventures he was driven by a 
tempest on the coast of Africa, where 
Queen Dido of Carthage received him 
kindly, and would have married him. 
Jupiter, however, sent Mercury to Eneas, 
and commanded him to sail for Italy. 
While the deserted Dido ended her life 
on the funeral pile Eneas set sail with 
his companions, and after further ad¬ 
ventures by land and' sea reached the 
country of King Latinus, in Italy. The 
king’s daughter Lavinia was destined by 
an oracle to a stranger, this stranger 
being Eneas, but was promised by her 
mother to Turnus, king of the Rutuli. 
This occasioned a war, after the termina¬ 
tion of which, Turnus having fallen by 
his hand, .Eneas married Lavinia. His 
son by Lavinia, Eneas Sylvius, was the 
legendary ancestor of the kinsrs of Alba 
Longa, and of Romulus and Remus, the 
founders of the city of Rome. 



iEolian Harp 


Aerodynamics 


■®olian Harp ^ a a “ in S; en a t 

generally consisting of a box of thin fi¬ 
brous wood (often of deal), to which are 
attached from eight to fifteen fine cat¬ 
gut strings or wires, stretched on low 
bridges at each end, and tuned in unison. 
Its length is made to correspond with the 
size of the window or other aperture in 
which it is intended to be placed. When 
the wind blows athwart the strings it 
produces very beautiful sounds, sweetly 
mingling all the harmonic tones, and 
swelling or diminishing according to the 
strength or weakness of the blast. Its 
name is derived from ><Eolus (which see). 

iEolians . (Gr - A!o ! ,5 ‘ ) ’ 

one of the four races into 
which the ancient Greeks were divided, 
originally inhabiting the district of iEolis, 
in Thessaly, from which they spread over 
other parts of Greece. In early times 
they were the most numerous and power¬ 
ful of the Hellenic races, chiefly inhabit¬ 
ing Northern Greece and the western side 
of Peloponnesus, though latterly a portion 
of them went to Lesbos and Tenedos and 
the northwest shores of Asia Minor, 
where they possessed a number of cities. 
Their language, the ^Eolian dialect, was 
one of the three principal dialects of the 
Greek. It was cultivated for literary 
purposes chiefly at Lesbos, and was the 
dialect in which Alcaeus and Sappho 
wrote. 

TFlftl'inilp (E. ^oli pila, the ball of 
M6lus)t a S p h erical vessel 
of metal, with a pipe of small aperture, 
through which the vapor of heated water 
in the ball passes out with considerable 
noise; or having two nozzles so placed 
that the steam rushing out causes it to 
revolve on the principle of Barker’s mill. 
It was known to the ancient Greeks. 
TEnln* (e'o-lus), in Greek mythology, 
the god of the winds, which 
he kept confined in a cave in the iEolian 
Islands, releasing them when he wished 
or was commanded by the superior gods. 
TEon a Greek word signifying 

life, an age, and sometimes eter¬ 
nity, but used by the Gnostics to express 
spirits or powers that had emanated from 
the Supreme Mind before the beginning 
of time. They held both Christ and the 
Holy Spirit to be aeons; but as they 
denied the divine origin of the books of 
Moses, they said that the spirit which 
had inspired him and the prophets was 
not that exalted aeon whom God sent forth 
after the ascension of Christ, but an aeon 
very much inferior, and removed at a 
great distance from the Supreme Being. 
TEnvnrrnS (e-pi-or'nis), a genus of 
gigantic birds whose re¬ 


mains have been found in Madagascar, 
where it is supposed to have lived perhaps 
not longer than 200 years ago. It had 
three toes, and is classed with the cur¬ 
sorial birds (ostrich, etc.). Its eggs 
measured 14 inches in length, being about 
six times the bulk of those of the ostrich. 
The bird which laid them may well have 
been the roc of Eastern tradition. 

TEnni (e'qui), an ancient people of 
j ta j y> conspicuous in the early 
wars of Home, and inhabiting the moun¬ 
tain district between the upper valley of 
the Anio (Teverone) and Lake Fucinus. 
They were probably akin to the Volscians, 
with whom they were in constant al¬ 
liance. They were defeated by Cincin- 
natus in b. c. 458, and again by the dic¬ 
tator Posthumus Tubertus in b.c. 428, and 
were finally subdued about b. c. 304—oU2. 
Soon after they were admitted to Roman 
citizenship. _ ... 

A'prafpd "RrPfld br . ead - whlch r ®' 

21 eictieu. JHCdu, ceives its spongi¬ 
ness or porosity from carbonic acid sup¬ 
plied artificially, and not produced by 
the fermentation caused by leaven or 
yeast. 

A'erated Waters, “ wl r%l 

bonic acid gas, and forming effervescing 
beverages. Some mineral waters, are nat¬ 
urally aerated, as Vichy, Apollinaris, 
Rosbach, etc.; others especially, such as 
are used for medicinal purposes, are fre¬ 
quently aerated to render them more pal¬ 
atable and exhilarating. Water simply 
aerated, or aerated and flavored with lem¬ 
onade or fruit syrups, is largely used, es¬ 
pecially in summer, as a refreshing bev¬ 
erage. " There are numerous varieties of 
apparatus for manufacturing aerated 
waters. An easily-worked, portable ap¬ 
paratus, called a gazogene, can now be 
readily procured, in which these waters 
can be cheaply produced at home, the gas 
being generated by bicarbonate of soda 
and tartaric acid. The quantity of gas 
with which the water is charged is 
usually equal to a pressure of 5 atmos¬ 
pheres. 

Ap-rianc (a-e'ri-ans), the followers of 
xxciidiio Aerius, who in the fourth cen¬ 
tury originated a small heretical sect, 
objecting to the established feast-days, 
the distinction between bishops and pres¬ 
byters, prayers for the dead, etc. 

A Prodrome (a'er-6-drom), a building 
2ieiouiuine in which t0 keep aero _ 

planes or an enclosure for testing them. 

A prod vti 5 J TUI PS (a-er-o-dl-nam'Iks), a 

.aerodynamics branch of physical 

science which treats of the properties and 
motions of elastic fluids (air, gases), and 
of the appliances by which these are ex- 




Aeroe 


Aeronautics 


emplified. This subject is often explained 
in connection with hydrodynamics. 

Aeroe, or Arroe .“g* 

Little Belt, 15 miles long by 5 broad, with 
12,000 inhabitants. Though hilly, it is 
very fertile. 

Aerolite (a'er-o-llt), a meteoric stone, 
meteorite, or shooting-star. 
See Meteoric Stones. 

Aeronautics (a-? r f-nau't i k s), the 

art of sailing in or navi¬ 
gating the air. The first form in which 
the idea of aerial locomotion naturally 
suggested itself was that of providing men 
with wings by which they should be en¬ 
abled to fly. This is now known to sur¬ 
pass the muscular power of man, and all 
actual efforts at flight have been by the 
aid of some kind of elevating apparatus. 



Santos Dumont’s Airship , rounding the 
Eiffel Tower. 


Until recently only the lifting power of 
gas has been employed for this purpose. 
The navigation of the air by means of 
the balloon dates only from nearly the 
close of the eighteenth century. In 1766 
Henry Cavendish showed that hydrogen 
gas was at least seven times lighter than 
ordinary air, and it at once occurred to 
Dr. Black of Edinburgh that a thin bag 
filled with this gas would rise in the air, 


but his experiments were for some reason 
unsuccessful. Some years afterwards Ti¬ 
berius Cavallo found that a bladder was 
too heavy and paper too porous, but in 
1782 he succeeded in elevating soap-bub¬ 
bles by inflating them with hydrogen gas. 
In this and the following year two 
Frenchmen, the brothers Stephen and 
Joseph Montgolfier, acting on the obser¬ 
vation of the suspension of clouds in the 
atmosphere and the ascent of smoke, were 
able to cause several bags to ascend by 
rarefying the air within them by means of 
a fire below. These experiments roused 
much attention at Paris; and soon after 
a balloon was constructed under the su¬ 
perintendence of Professor Charles, which 
being inflated with hydrogen gas rose over 
3000 feet in two minutes, disappeared in 
the clouds, and fell after three-quarters of 
an hour about 15 miles from Paris. 
These Montgolfier and Charles balloons 
already represented the two distinct prin¬ 
ciples in respect to the source of elevating 
power, the one being inflated with com¬ 
mon air rarefied by heat, requiring a fire 
to keep up the rarefaction, the other be¬ 
ing filled with gas lighter at a common 
temperature than air, and thus rendered 
permanently buoyant. Both forms were 
used for a considerable time, but the 
greater safety and convenience of the gas¬ 
eous inflation finally prevailed. After the 
use of coal-gas had been introduced it 
superseded hydrogen gas, as being much 
less expensive, though having a far less 
elevating power. The first person who 
made an ascent was Pil&tre de Rozier, 
who ascended 50 feet at Paris in 1783 in 
one of Montgolfier’s balloons. A short 
time afterwards M. Charles and M. Rob¬ 
ert ascended in a balloon inflated with 
hydrogen gas, and traveled a distance of 
27 miles from the Tuilleries; M. Charles 
by himself also ascended to a height of 
about 2 miles. Since then a large num¬ 
ber of ascents have been made, with com¬ 
paratively few disastrous results. Among 
the names of the earlier balloonists we 
may mention Lunardi, wbo made an as¬ 
cent in Great Britain in 1784; Blanchard, 
who, along with the American Dr. Jef¬ 
fries, first crossed the Channel from 
Dover to Calais, in 1785; Garnerin, 
who first descended by a parachute from 
a balloon in 1707; and Gay Lussac, who 
reached the height of 23,000 feet in 1804. 
In 1836 a balloon carrying Messrs. Green, 
Holland, and Mason traversed the 500 
miles between London and Weilburg in 
Nassau in eighteen hours. In 1859 Mr. 
J. Wise, the chief of American aeronauts, 
accompanied by several others, rose from 
New York, and landed, after a flight of 
1150 miles, in twenty hours. In Sept., 









Aeronautics 


Aerophore 


1862, the renowned aeronaut, Mr. Glai- 
sher, accompanied by Mr. Coxwell, made 
an ascent from Wolverhampton, and 
reached the elevation of 37,000 feet, or 7 
miles, much the greatest height ever 
reached. The daring excursionists were 
for a time in great peril, Mr. Glaisher 
having been insensible for seven minutes, 
and Mr. Coxwell having his hands so 
severely frozen that he was unable to 
pull the valve for descent with them, and 
was compelled to use his teeth.—All the 
features of the balloon as now used are 
more or less due to Professor Charles, al¬ 
ready mentioned. The balloon is a large 
pear-shaped bag, made of pliable silk 
cloth, covered with a varnish of caout¬ 
chouc dissolved in oil. of turpentine to 
render it air-tight. The ordinary size of 
the bag ranges from 20 to 30 feet in 
equatorial diameter, with a proportionate 
height, but far larger balloons have been 
constructed. A car, generally of wicker¬ 
work, supported by a network which ex¬ 
tends over the balloon, contains the aero¬ 
naut. Within recent years many experi¬ 
ments have been made with the dirigible 
balloon, in which an elongated or cigar¬ 
shaped bag is driven by an engine of light 
weight and steered by a rudder. Much 
success has been attained in this field of 
experiment by Santos-Dumont, Count von 
Zeppelin, and many others. Progress in 
this field of enterprise reached a high 
level of accomplishment in the efforts of 
Count von Zeppelin, a German aviator, 
which culminated in 1910 in the building 
of an enormous airship 485 feet long and 
46 feet wide, with three powerful motors, 
aggregating 330 horsepower. This was 
built with a rieid frame and was made up 
of a considerable number of smaller gas 
bags extending along the length of the 
cigar-shaped airship, the whole enclosed 
in one outer covering and firmly braced 
with metal rings. Other types of air¬ 
ships are the Gross, or semi-rigid, and 
the Parsival or flexible, the latter obtain- 



Zeppelin’s Dirigible. 

ing its rigidity from the internal pressure 
of the gas. The progress made in the 
development of dirigible balloons attracted 
the attention of the governments of Eu¬ 


rope, several of which now possess ma¬ 
chines of this kind intended for military 
purposes, including observation of an en¬ 
emy from the upper air and the drop- 



Langley’s Aeroplane. 

ping of explosives into a hostile camp or 
city. Count von Zeppelin, whose exper¬ 
iments attracted great attention, had the 
misfortune in August, 1908, of having his 
airship consumed with fire, leaving him 
without funds to replace it. In this di¬ 
lemma the people of Germany came to 
his aid, with a popular subscription of 
nearly $1,000,000. In 1909 he made rec¬ 
ord flights of 800 and 950 miles, and in 
June, 1910, established an airship stage 
route, carrying about 20 passengers day 
after day until the 28th, when his ship 
was wrecked in a storm. He had the 
misfortune of losing another airship by 
wreckage in May, 1911. The most im¬ 
portant event in airship travel during 
1910 was the attempt of Walter Well¬ 
man to make a flight across the Atlantic. 
Starting from Atlantic City, October 15, 
the airship flew north until off the New 
England coast, where it was driven 
southward by a storm, the aeronauts be¬ 
ing rescued by the steamer Trent after 
their airship became unmanageable and 
had to be abandoned. They had made 
a flight of 1008 miles, the longest on- 
record. See Aeroplane. 

Aerophone (a-er'b : fon), an instrument 
by which sound waves are 
amplified, without loss of distinctness. It 
consists of a diaphragm caused to vi¬ 
brate by the voice and controlling the es¬ 
cape of compressed air from a receiver. 
This in turn vibrates a larger diaphragm, 
with increase of sound. This name is 
also given to an instrument to aid the 
hearing, in which there is a tube or horn 
to speak into, with two connected ones 
to hold to the ears. 

Aerophore ( a-er -o'for), a device for 
r permitting respiration un¬ 

der water or in air charged with smoke 









HENRY FARM AN’S BIPLANE IN FLIGHT 

Two famous French aeroplanes of the biplane type 




















Aeroplane 


Aeroplane 


or vapor. Potassium hydroxide or other 
suitable substance is used to absorb the 
waste products of respiration and to serve 
as a receptacle and revivifier of vitiated 

air. 

Aeroplane (a' e r-o-plan), a flying ma- 
* chine heavier than air, and 

sustained by aid of propulsion from a source 



Wright Biplane. 


of power and the lifting action of the 
air on moving planes. Interesting ex¬ 
periments in this field of flight were made 
by Otto Lilienthal, Hiram S. Maxim, and 
Prof. S. Langley near the close of the 
nineteenth century. These led to the con¬ 
ception of the aeroplane, or gliding ma¬ 
chine, efforts to develop which were first 
begun in 1900 by two Americans, Orville 
and Wilbur Wright, of Dayton, O., whose 
experiments were made on a desolate 
sandy plain at Kitty Hawk, N. C. The 
first actual flight was made in September, 
1902, when their crude machine kept 
afloat for two minutes. They continued 
their experiments in secret for several 
years, 1908 being the first year of public 
aviation. Flights of considerable dura- 



Wright Biplane, (rear). 


tion had been made, and on Sept. 10, 1908, 
Orville Wright remained in the air 62 
minutes, 15 seconds, at Fort Meyer, near 
Washington. By this time many others 


w r ere experimenting, especially in France, 
the first notable achievement that fol¬ 
lowed being the crossing of the English 
Channel by Jean Bleriot, on July 25, 
1909. Count de Lesseps paralleled this 
feat in May, 1910, and on June 2, Charles 
S. Bolls, a young Englishman, surpassed 
it, doubly crossing the Channel from 
Dover to Calais and return, the flight of 
50 miles being made in 90 minutes. The 
records for long flight, up to this time, 
were those of Louis Paulhan, who flew 
from London to Manchester (117 miles) 
and won a prize of $50,000, and Glenn 



front elevation 




H. Curtiss, who, on May 29, 1910, flew 
from Albany to New York, a distance of 
150 miles, at an average speed of 51 2/3 
miles per hour. Machines of two types 
were used in these flights, the biplane, 
composed of two firmly connected planes, 
the type of the Wright machine, and the 
monoplane, or single gliding plane, used 
by Bleriot. On June 13, 1910, Charles 
K. Hamilton flew from New York to 
Philadelphia, a distance of 88 miles, in 1 
hour 51 minutes, and returned to New 
York. In the latter half of 1910 aero¬ 
plane flights were very numerous, alike 
in the United States and Europe, and 





























































































































tL' 









pi 






The working parts of an aeroplane of the biplane type. In the center is the 30 horsepower water-cooled motor which drives the 
twin propellers by means of chains. At the right is the operator’s seat, between the operating levers, and at top and bottom of 

the picture are the two supporting planes which give the machine its name. 













Aerostatic Press 


iEsop 


many difficult feats were performed. 
One daring aviator crossed the Alps, and 
was killed in his descent, and in late 
December Archie Hoxsey, an American 
aviator, crossed a mountain near Los 
Angeles. He was killed in a flight a 
few days later. Distances of several hun¬ 
dred miles were made, and one aviator 
kept in the air for six hours without land¬ 
ing. Great elevations also were reached, 
Hoxsey in December reaching a record 
height of over 11,000 feet. Experiments 
in carrying a number of passengers and 
also in dropping bombs were made, and 
it was proved that a ship or a fort could 
easily be hit from an aeroplane. In fact, 
the science of flight made ereat progress 
during the year, but not without large loss 
of life. In the following year longer 
flights were made and many daring feats 
performed; progress in the new art being 
great. 

Aerostatic Press, a sim P ie con . tri ‘ 

’vance for render¬ 
ing the pressure of the atmosphere avail¬ 
able for extracting the coloring matter 
from dye-woods and similar purposes. _ A 
horizontal partition divides the machine 
into two parts. The lower part is con¬ 
nected with an air-pump, by means of 
which the air can be withdrawn from it. 
The matter from which the substance is 
to be extracted is laid upon the partition, 
which is perforated, and a perforated 
cover is placed over it and the air ex¬ 
tracted from the lower vessel. 

A p rn«ta ti pq (a-er-o-staf i k s ) , th a t 
AeiUbldULfc branch of p hys i cs W hich 

treats of the weight, pressure, and equi¬ 
librium of air and gases. See Air, Air- 
pump, Barometer, Gas, etc. 

TFcpTiiupq (es'ki-nez), a celebrated 
^EibLIIlllcb Athenian orator, the rival 

and opponent of Demosthenes, was born 
390 b. c. and died in 314. He headed the 
Macedonian party in Greece, or those in 
favor of an alliance with Philip, while 
Demosthenes took the opposite side. It 
was in contest with him that Demos¬ 
thenes made his famous oration, * For 
the Crown.’’ 

TEspllvlllS (es'ki-lus), the first in 

ZEibbliyiua t . me of the three great 


tragic poets of Greece, born at Eleusis, in 
Attica, b. c. 525, died in Sicily 456. Be¬ 
fore he gained distinction as a dramatist 
he had highly distinguished himself at the 
battle of Marathon (490), as he after¬ 
wards did at Artemisium, Salamis, and 
Platsea. He first gained the prize for 
tragedy in b. c. 484. The Persians, the 
earliest of his extant pieces, formed part 
of a trilogy which gained the prize in 
b. c. 472. In b. c. 468 he was defeated 
by Sophocles, and then is said to have 


gone to the court of Hiero, King of Syra¬ 
cuse. Altogether he is reputed to have 
composed seventy tragedies and gained 
thirteen triumphs. Only seven of his 
tragedies are extant: The Persians, Seven 
against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus, 
Agamemnon, Choephori, and Eumenides, 
the last three forming a trilogy on the 
story of Orestes, represented in b. c. 458. 
Aeschylus may be called the creator of 
Greek tragedy, both from the splendor of 
his dramatic writings and from the scenic 
improvements and accessories he intro¬ 
duced. Till his time only one actor had 
appeared on the stage at a time, and by 
bringing on a second he was really the 
founder of dramatic dialogue. His style 
was grand, daring, and full of energy, 
though sometimes erring in excessive 
splendor of diction and imagery, if not 
indeed harsh or turgid. His plays have 
little or no plot, and his characters are 
drawn by a few powerful strokes. There 
are English poetical translations of his 
, Plumptre, and Swanwick. 
(es-ku-la'pi-us), the god 
of medicine among the 


plays by Blackie 

iEsculapius 


Greeks, subsequently adopted by the Ro¬ 
mans, and usually said to have been a son 
of Apollo. He was worshiped in partic¬ 
ular at Epidaurus, in Peloponnesus, 
where a temple with a grove was dedi¬ 
cated to him. The sick who visited his 
temple had to spend one or more nights 
in the sanctuary, after which the remedies 
to be used were revealed in a dream. 
Those who were cured offered a sacrifice 
to Aesculapius, commonly a cock. He is 
often represented with a large beard, hold¬ 
ing a knotty staff, round which is en¬ 
twined a serpent, the serpent being spe¬ 
cially his symbol. Near him often stands 
a cock. Sometimes Aesculapius is repre¬ 
sented under the image of a sernent only. 

7R<jpnln<i (es'ku-lus), the genus of 
-a^uiua plantg tQ which belongs the 

horse-chestnut. 

7ESOT) (e'sop), the Greek fabulist, is 
said to have been a contempo¬ 
rary of Croesus and Solon, and thus prob¬ 
ably lived about the middle of the sixth 
century b. c. But so little is known of 
his life that his existence has been called 
in question. He is said to have been 
originally a slave, and to have received 
his freedom from a Samian master, Iad- 
mon. He then visited the court of Croe¬ 
sus, and is also said to have visited Pisis- 
tratus at Athens. Finally he was sent by 
Croesus to Delphi to distribute a sum of 
money to each of the citizens. For some 
reason he refused to distribute the money, 
whereupon the Delphians, enraged, threw 
him from a precipice, and killed him. 
No works of ADsop are extant, and it is 



^Esthetics 


^Ethiopia 


doubtful whether he wrote any. Bentley 
inclined to the supposition that his fables 
were delivered orally and perpetuated by 
repetition. Such fables are spoken of 
both by Aristophanes and Plato. Phse- 
drus turned into Latin verse the iEsopian 
fables current in his day, with additions 
of his own. In modern times several col¬ 
lections purporting to be iEsop’s fables 
have been published. 

TFctlip+irx: (es-thet'iks; pertaining to 
ZCiSineXltb perc . eDtionK the philos¬ 
ophy of the beautiful; the name given 
to the branch of philosophy or of science 
which is concerned with that class of 
emotions, or with those attributes, real 
or apparent, of objects generally compre¬ 
hended under the term beauty, and other 
related expressions. The term aesthetics 
first received this application from Baum- 
garten (1714-1762), a German philoso¬ 
pher, who was the first modern writer to 
treat systematically on the subject, though 
the beautiful had received attention at the 
hands of philosophers from early times. 
Socrates, according to Xenophon, re¬ 
garded the beautiful as coincident with 
the good, and both as resolvable into the 
useful. Plato, in accordance with his 
idealistic theory, held the existence of an 
absolute beauty, which is the ground of 
beauty in all things. He also asserted 
the intimate union of the good, the beau¬ 
tiful, and the true. Aristotle treated of 
the subject in much more detail than 
Plato, but chiefly from the scientific or 
critical point of view. In his treatises 
on poetry and rhetoric he lays down a 
theory of art. and establishes principles of 
beauty. His philosophical views were 
in many respects opposed to those of 
Plato. He does not admit an absolute 
conception of the beautiful; but he dis¬ 
tinguishes beauty from the good, the use¬ 
ful, the fit, and the necessary. He re¬ 
solves beauty into certain elements, as or¬ 
der, symmetry, definiteness. A distinc¬ 
tion of beauty, according to him, is the 
absence of desire in the pleasure it ex¬ 
cites. Baumgarten’s treatment of aesthet¬ 
ics is essentially Platonic. He made the 
division of philosophy into logic, ethics, 
and aesthetics; the first dealing with 
knowledge, the second with action (will 
and desire), the third with beauty. He 
limits aesthetics to the conceptions de¬ 
rived from the senses, and makes them 
consist in confused or obscured concep¬ 
tions, in contradistinction to logical 
knowledge, which consists in clear concep¬ 
tions. Kant defines beauty in reference 
to his four categories, quantity, quality, 
relation, and modality. In accordance 
with the subjective character of his sys¬ 
tem he denies an absolute conception of 


beauty, but his detailed treatment of the 
subject is inconsistent with the denial. 
Thus he attributes a beauty to single col¬ 
ors and tones, not on any plea of com¬ 
plexity, but on the ground of purity. He 
holds also that the highest meaning of 
beauty is to symbolize moral good, and 
arbitrarily attaches moral characters to 
the seven primary colors. The value of 
art is mediate, and the beauty of art is 
inferior to that of nature. Other German 
philosophers have dealt with this subject, 
their speculations going far beyond the 
conceptions of English writers. Shaftes¬ 
bury adopted the notion that beauty is 
perceived by a special internal sense; in 
which he was followed by Hutcheson, 
who held that beauty existed only in the 
perceiving mind, and not in the object. 
Numerous English writers, among whom 
the principal are Alison and Jeffrey, have 
supported the theory that the source of 
beauty is to be found in association—a 
theory analogous to that which places 
moraiity in sympathy. Dugald Stewart 
attempted to show that there is no com¬ 
mon quality in the beautiful beyond that 
of producing a certain refined pleasure; 
and Bain agrees with this criticism, but 
endeavors to restrict the beautiful within 
a group of emotions chiefly excited by 
association or combination of simpler ele¬ 
mentary feelings. Herbert Spencer has 
a theory of beauty which is subservient to 
the theory of evolution. He makes beauty 
consist in the play of the higher powers 
of perception and emotion, defined as an 
activity not directly subservient to any 
processes conducive to life, but being grat¬ 
ifications sought for themselves alone. 
He classifies aesthetic pleasures according 
to the complexity of the emotions excited, 
or the number of powers duly exercised; 
and he attributes the depth and apparent 
vagueness of musical emotions to associa¬ 
tions with vocal tones built up during 
vast ages. Among numerous writers who 
have made valuable contributions to the 
scientific discussion of aesthetics may be 
mentioned Winckelmann, Lessing, Rich¬ 
ter, the Schlegels, Gervinus, Helmholtz, 
and Ruskin. 

Estivation fe ti ;™' shun V 5 

ical term applied to the 
arrangement of the parts of a flower in 
the flower-bud previous to the opening of 
the bud.—The term is also applied to the 
summer sleep of animals. See Dormant 
State. 

iEtheling. See Atheling. 

E'ther. See Ether. 

^Ithio'pia. See Ethiopia , 




-ZEthrioscope 


Afghanistan 


iEthrioSCOpe (eth'ri-o-scop, Gr. 

r aithnos, clear, cloud¬ 

less), an instrument for measuring radia¬ 
tion towards a clear sky, consisting of a 
metallic cup with a highly-polished in¬ 
terior of paraboloid shape, in the focus 
of which is placed one bulb of a differ¬ 
ential thermometer, the other being out¬ 
side. The inside bulb at once begins to 
radiate heat when exposed to a clear 
sky, and the extent to which this takes 
place is shown by the scale of the ther¬ 
mometer. The sethrioscope also indicates 
the presence of invisible aqueous vapor in 
the atmosphere, radiation being less than 
when the air is dry. 

iEthn'sa a S enus of umbelliferous 
9 plants. See Fool’s Parsley. 
ActillS (a-e'she-us), a general of the 
western Roman Empire, born 
A. d. 396 murdered 454. As commander 
in the reign of Valeptinian TIT he de¬ 
fended the empire against the Huns, Visi¬ 
goths, Franks, Burgundians, etc., com¬ 
pletely defeating the first in particular 
under Attila in a great battle at Chalons 
in 451. For twenty years he was at the 
head of public affairs, and latterly was 
murdered by Valentinian from jealousy 
of his power. 

-ffit'na. See Etna. 

TEtnlifl (e-to'li-a), a western division 
of northern Greece, sep¬ 
arated on the west by the Achelous from 
Acarnania and .washed by the Corinthian 
Gulf on the south. The inhabitants are 
little heard of in Greek history till the 
Peloponnesian war, at which time they 
were notorious among the Greeks for the 
rudeness of their manners. iEtolia, in 
conjunction with Acarnania, now forms 
a nomarchy of the kingdom of Greece. 
Affidavit (af-i-da'vit), a written 
AmaaVir statement of facts upon 
oath or affirmation. Affidavits are gen¬ 
erally made use of when evidence is to 
be laid before a judge or a court, while 
evidence brought before a jury is deliv¬ 
ered orally. The person making the affi¬ 
davit signs his name at the bottom of it, 
and swears that the statements con¬ 
tained in it are true. The affidavit may 
be sworn to in open court, or before a 
magistrate, notary public or other duly 
qualified person. 

Affivntv (a-fin'i-ti), in chemistry, the 
xxiiiiii ly force by which unlike kinds 

of matter combine so intimately that the 
properties of the constituents are. lost, 
and a compound with new properties is 
produced. Of the force itself we know 
little or nothing. It is not the same 
under all conditions, being very much 
modified by circumstances, especially 


temperature. The usual effect of in¬ 
crease of temperature is to diminish affin¬ 
ity and ultimately to cause the separa¬ 
tion of a compound into its constituents; 
and there is probably for every com¬ 
pound a temperature above which it could 
not exist, but would be broken up. Where 
two elements combine to form a com¬ 
pound heat is almost always evolved, 
and the amount evolved serves as a 
measure of the affinity. In order that 
chemical affinity may come into play it is 
necessary that the substances should be 
in contact, and usually one of them at 
least is a fluid or a gas. The results pro¬ 
duced by chemical combination are end¬ 
lessly varied. Color, taste, and smell are 
changed, destroyed, or created ; harmless 
constituents produce strong poisons, 
strong poisons produce harmless com¬ 
pounds. 

Aflfirntv * n * aw > is that degree of con- 
’ nection which subsists be¬ 
tween one of two married persons and the 
blood relations of the other. It is no 
real kindred fconsanguinity). A person 
cannot, by legal succession, receive an in¬ 
heritance from a relation by affinity; 
neither does it extend to the nearest rela¬ 
tions of husband and wife so as to create 
a mutual relation between them. The de¬ 
grees of affinity are computed in the same 
way as those of consanguinity or blood. 


Affirm a firm (af-er-ma'shun), a sol- 

Altirmation emn declaration by Qua¬ 
kers and others, who object to taking an 
oath, in confirmation of their testimony 
in courts of law, or of their statements 
on other occasions on which the sanction 
of an oath is required of other persons. 
In England the form for Quakers is, ‘ I 
do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare 
and affirm.’ Affirmation is generally al¬ 
lowed to be substituted for an oath in all 
cases where a person refuses to take an 
oath from conscientious motives, if the 
judge is satisfied that the motives are 
conscientious. False affirmation is sub¬ 
jected to the same penalties as perjury. 

Afghanistan (af-gan-i-stan'), the 
illgUdlllbUiU land of the Afghans> a 

country in Asia bounded on the east by 
Kashmir and the Punjab, on the south 
by Beluchistan, on the west by the Per¬ 
sian province of Khorasan, and on the 
north by Bokhara and Russian Turkestan. 
In part the boundaries are not well de¬ 
fined, but recently that from the Oxus to 
the Persian frontier has been surveyed 
and marked by boundary stones by a joint 
Russian and British commission. The 
area may be set down at about 240,000 
sq. miles. The population is estimated at 
about 5,000,000. Afghanistan consists 
chiefly of lofty, bare, uninhabited table- 



Afghanistan 


Afghanistan 


lands, sandy barren plains, ranges of 
snow-covered mountains, offsets of the 
Hindu Kush or the Himalayas, and deep 
ravines and valleys. Many of the last 
are well watered and very fertile, but 
about four-fifths of the whole surface is 
rocky, mountainous, and unproductive. 
The surface on the northeast is covered 
with lofty ranges belonging to the Hindu 
Kush, whose heights are often 18,000 
and sometimes reach perhaps 25,000 feet. 
The whole northeastern portion of the 
country has a general elevation of over 
6,000 feet; but towards the southwest, 
in which direction the principal mountain 
chains of the interior run, the general 
elevation declines to not more than 1600 
feet. In the interior the mountains some¬ 
times reach the height of 15,000 ft. Great 
part of the frontier towards India con¬ 
sists of the Suleiman range, 12,000 feet 
high. There are numerous practicable 
avenues of communication between Af¬ 
ghanistan and India, among the most ex¬ 
tensively used being the famous Khyber 
Pass, by w T hich the river Cabul enters the 
Punjab ;. the Gomul Pass, also leading to 
the Punjab; and the Bolan Pass on the 
south, through which the route passes to 
Sind. Of the rivers the largest is the 
Helmund, which flows in a southwesterly 
direction more than 400 miles, till it 
enters the Hamoon or Seistan swamp. It 
receives the Arghandab, a considerable 
stream.. Next in importance are the 
Cabul in the northeast, which drains to 
the Indus, and the Hari Rud in the 
northwest, which, like other Afghan 
streams, loses itself in the sand. The 
climate is extremely cold in the higher, 
and intensely hot in the lower regions, 
yet on the whole it is salubrious. The 
most common trees are pines, oaks, birch, 
and walnut. In the valleys fruits, in the 
greatest variety and abundance, grow 
wild. The principal crops are wheat, 
forming the staple food of the people; 
barley, rice, and maize. Other crops are 
tobacco, sugar-cane, and cotton. The 
chief domestic animals are the dromedary, 
the horse, ass, and mule, the ox, sheep 
with large fine fleeces and enormous fat 
tails, and goats; of wild animals there 
are the tiger, bears, leonards, wolves, 
jackal, hyena, foxes, etc. The chief towns 
are Cabul (the capital), Kandahar, Ghuz- 
ni, and Herat. The inhabitants belong 
to different races, but the Afghans proper 
form the great mass of the people. They 
are allied in blood to the Persians, and 
are divided into a number of tribes, among 
which the Duranis and Ghiljis are the 
most important. The Afghans are bold, 
hardy, and warlike, fond of freedom and 
resolute in maintaining it, but of a rest¬ 


less, turbulent temper, and much given to 
plunder. Tribal dissensions are constantly 
in existence, and seldom or never do all 
the Afghans pay allegiance to the nominal 
ruler of their country. Their language is 
distinct from the Persian, though it con¬ 
tains a great number of Persian words, 
and is written, like the Persian, with the 
Arabic characters. In religion they are 
Mohammedans of the Sunnite sect. 

The history of Afghanistan belongs al¬ 
most to modern times. The collective 
name of the country itself is of modern 
and external origin (Persian). In 1738 
the country was conquered by the Per¬ 
sians under Nadir Shah. On his death 
in 1747 Ahmed Shah, one of his generals, 
obtained the sovereignty of Afghanistan, 
and became the founder of a dynasty, 
which lasted about eighty years. At the 
end of that time Dost Mohammed, the 
ruler, of Cabul, had acquired a prepon¬ 
derating influence in the country. On 
account of his dealings with the Russians 
the British resolved to dethrone him and 
restore Shah Shuja, a former ruler. In 
April, 1S39, a British army under Sir 
John Keane entered Afghanistan, occu¬ 
pied Cabul, and placed Shah Shuja on the 
throne, a force of 8000 being left to sup¬ 
port the new . sovereign. Sir W. Mac- 
naghten remained as envoy at Cabul, 
with Sir Alexander Burnes as assistant 
envoy. The Afghans soon organized a 
wide-spread insurrection, which came to a 
head on Nov. 2, 1841, when Burnes and a 
number, of British officers, besides women 
and children, were murdered, Macnagh- 
ten being murdered not long after. The 
other British leaders now made a treaty 
with the Afghans, at whose head was 
Akbar, son of Dost Mohammed, agreeing 
to withdraw the forces from the country, 
while the Afghans were to furnish them 
with provisions and escort them on their 
way. On 6th January, 1842, the British 
left Cabul and began their most disastrous 
retreat. The cold was intense, they had 
almost no food—for the treacherous Af¬ 
ghans did not fulfil their promises—and 
day after day they -were assailed by 
bodies of the enemy. By the 13th, 26,000 
persons, including camp-followers, women 
and children, were destroyed. Some were 
kept as prisoners, but only one man, Dr. 
Brydon, reached Jelalabad, which, as 
well as Kandahar, was still held by 
British troops. In a few months Gen¬ 
eral Pollock, with a fresh army from In¬ 
dia, retook Cabul and soon finished the 
war. Shah Shuja having been assassin¬ 
ated. Dost Mohammed again obtained the 
throne of Cabul, and acquired extensive 
power in Afghanistan. He joined with 
the Sikhs against the British, but after- 



Afmm-Kara-Hissar 


Africa 


wards made an offensive and defensive 
alliance with the latter. He died in 1863, 
having nominated his son Shere Ali his 
successor. Shere Ali entered into friendly 
relations with the British, but in 1878, 
having repulsed a British envoy and re¬ 
fused to receive a British mission (a 
Russian mission being meantime at his 
court), war was declared against him, 
and the British troops entered Afghan¬ 
istan. They met with comparatively 
little resistance; the ameer fled to Turk¬ 
estan, where he soon after died ; and his 
son Yakoob Khan having succeeded him 
concluded a treaty with the British (at 
Gandamak,. May, 1879), in which a cer¬ 
tain extension of the British frontier, the 
control by. Britain of the foreign policy 
of Afghanistan, and the residence of a 
British envoy in Cabul, were the chief 
stipulations. The members of the mis¬ 
sion were again treacherously attacked 
and slain, and troops were again sent 
into the country. Cabul was once more 
occupied., and Kandahar and Ghazni were 
also relieved; while Yakoob Khan was 
sent to imprisonment in India. In 18S0 
Abdur-Rahman, a grandson of Dost Mo¬ 
hammed, was recognized by Britain as 
emir of the country, and continued on 
friendly terms with the British, by whom 
he was subsidized, until his death in 
1901, his son Habibullah Khan succeed¬ 
ing.. Encroachments by the Russians on 
territory claimed by Afghanistan almost 
brought about a rupture between Britain 
and Russia in 1885, and led to the delim¬ 
itation of the frontier of Afghanistan 
on the side next the territory now occu¬ 
pied by Russia. An Anglo-Russian con¬ 
vention was made in 1907 in which Bri¬ 
tain declared that it would not annex or 
occupy any part of Afghanistan and Rus¬ 
sia recognized that country as outside her 
sphere of influence, agreeing to deal with 
it politically only through the channel 
of the British government. 

Afmm-Kara-Hissar 0 ^. u i“'K lack ; 

castle), a 
city of Asiatic Turkey, 170 miles e. s. e. 
of Constantinople, with manufactures of 
woolens, and a trade in opium (afium ), 
etc. Pop. 18,000. 


Afragola 


,____ a town of 

Italy, about 6 miles N. N. E. 
of Naples, has extensive manufactures of 
straw bonnets. Pop. 22,000. 

A f-ranine Lucius (a-fra'ni-us). a 
XHicuiius, Roman comic dramatist 

who flourished about the beginning of the 
first century B.C., and of whose writings 
only fragments remain. 

Africa (af'ri-ka), one of the three 
xlliiUcL great divisions of the Old 
World, and the second in extent of the 


five principal continents of the globe, 
forming a vast peninsula joined to Asia 
by the Isthmus of Suez. It is of a com¬ 
pact form, with few important projec¬ 
tions or indentations, and has therefore 
a very small extent of coast-line (about 
16,000 miles, or much less than that of 
Europe) in proportion to its area. This 
continent extends from 37° 20' n. lat. to 
34° 50' s. lat., and the extreme points, 
Cape Blanco and Cape Agulhas, are 
nearly 5000 miles apart. From west to 
east, between Cape Verde, Ion. 17° 34' w. 
and Cape Guardafui, Ion. 51° 16' e., the 
distance is about 4600 miles. The area 
is estimated at 11,500,000 square miles, 
or more than three times that of Europe. 
The islands belonging to Africa are not 
numerous, and, except Madagascar, none 
of them are large. They include Madeira, 
the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, Fer¬ 
nando Po, Prince’s Island, St. Thomas, 
Ascension. St. Helena, Mauritius, Bour¬ 
bon, the Comoros, Socotra, etc. 

The interior of Africa has recently 
been so well explored that its surface 
characteristics are known. One of these 
is that almost all round it at no great 
distance from the sea, and, roughly speak¬ 
ing, parallel with the coast-line, we find 
ranges of mountains or elevated lands 
forming the outer edges of interior pla¬ 
teaux. The most striking feature of 
Northern Africa is the immense tract 
known as the Sahara or Great Desert, 
which is inclosed on the north by the 
Atlas Mountains (greatest height. 12,000 
to 13,000 feet), the plateau of Barbary 
and that of Barca, on the east by the 
mountains along the west coast of the 
Red Sea, on the west by the Atlantic 
Ocean, and on the south by the Soudan. 
The Sahara is by no means the sea of 
sand it has sometimes been represented: 
it contains elevated plateaux and even 
mountains radiating in all directions, 
with habitable valleys between. A con¬ 
siderable nomadic population is scattered 
over the habitable parts, and in the more 
favored regions there are settled commu¬ 
nities. The Soudan, which lies to the 
south of the Sahara, and separates it 
from the more elevated plateau of South¬ 
ern Africa, forms a belt of pastoral 
country across Africa, and includes the 
countries on the Niger, around Lake 
Tchad (or Chad), and eastwards to the 
elevated region of Abyssinia. Southern 
Africa as a whole is much more fertile 
and well watered than Northern Africa, 
though it also has a desert tract of con¬ 
siderable extent (the Kalahari Desert). 
This division of the continent consists of 
a table-land, or series of table-lands, of 
considerable elevation and great diversity 




Africa 


Africa 


of surface, exhibiting hollows filled with 
great lakes, and terraces over which the 
rivers break in falls and rapids, as they 
find their way to the low-lying coast 
tracts. The mountains which inclose 
Southern Africa are mostly much higher 
on the east than on the west, the most 
northerly of the former being those of 
Abyssinia, with heights of 10,000 to 14,- 
000 or 16,000 feet, while the eastern edge 
of the Abyssinian plateau presents a steep 
unbroken line of 7000 feet in height for 
many hundred miles. Farther south, 
and between the great lakes and the 
Indian Ocean, we find Mounts Kenia and 
Kilimanjaro (19,500 ft.), the loftiest in 
Africa, covered with perpetual snow. Of 
the continuation of this mountain bound¬ 
ary we shall only mention the Drakenberg 
Mountains, which stretch to the southern 
extremity of the continent, reaching in 
Cathkin Peak, Natal, the height of over 
10,000 feet. Of the mountains that form 
the western border the highest are the 
Cameroon Mountains, which rise to a 
height of 13,000 feet, at the inner angle 
of the Gulf of Guinea. The average 
elevation of the southern plateau is 
probably from 3000 to 4000 feet. 

The Nile is the only great river of 
Africa which flows to the Mediterranean. 
It receives its waters primarily from the 
great lake Victoria Nyanza, which- lies 
under the equator, and in its upper course 
is fed by tributary streams of great size, 
but for the last 1200 miles of its course 
it has not a single affluent. It drains an 
area of more than 1,000,000 square miles. 
The Indian Ocean receives numerous 
rivers; but the only great river of South 
Africa which enters that ocean is the 
Zambesi, the fourth in size of the con¬ 
tinent, and having in its course the 
Victoria Falls, one of the greatest water¬ 
falls in the world. In Southern Africa 
also, but flowing westward and entering 
the Atlantic, is the Congo, which takes 
origin from a series of lakes and marshes 
in the interior, is fed by great tributaries, 
and is the first in volume of all the 
African rivers, carrying to the ocean 
more water than the Mississippi. Unlike 
most of the African rivers, the mouth of 
the Congo forms an estuary. Of the 
other Atlantic rivers, the Senegal, the 
Gambia, and the Niger are the largest, 
the last, which traverses the western 
Soudan, being third among African 
streams. 

With the exception of Lake Tchad there 
are no great lakes in the northern division 
of Africa, whereas in the number and 
magnificence of its lakes the southern 
division almost rivals North America. 
Here are the Victoria and Albert Nyanza,. 


Lakes Tanganyika, Nyassa, Shirwa, Bang- 
weolo, Moero, and others. Of these the 
Victoria and Albert belong to the basin 
of the Nile; Tanganyika, Bangweolo, and 
Moero to that of the Congo ; Nyassa, by 
its affluent the Shirg, to the Zambesi. 
Lake Tchad on the borders of the north¬ 
ern desert region, and Lake Ngami on 
the borders of the southern, have a 
remarkable resemblance in position, and 
in the fact that both are drained by 
streams that lose themselves in the sand. 
The climate of Africa is mainly influenced 
by the fact that it lies almost entirely 
within the tropics. In the equatorial belt, 
both north and south, rain is abundant 
and vegetation very luxuriant, dense 
tropical forests prevailing for about 10° 
on either side of the line. To the north 
and south of the equatorial belt the rain¬ 
fall diminishes, and the forest region is 
succeeded by an open pastoral and 
agricultural country. This is followed by 
the rainless regions of the Sahara on the 
north and the Kalahari Desert on the 
south, extending beyond the tropics, and 
bordering on the agricultural and pastoral 
countries of the north and south coasts, 
which lie entirely in the temperate zone. 
The low coast regions of Africa are al¬ 
most everywhere unhealthy, the Atlantic 
coast within the tropics being the most 
fatal region to Europeans. 

Among mineral productions may be 
mentioned gold, which is found in the 
rivers of West Africa (hence the name 
Gold Coast), and in Southern Africa 
latterly in much abundance; diamonds 
have been found in large numbers in 
recent years in the south; iron, copper, 
lead, tin, and coal are also found.— 
Among plants are the baobab, the date- 
palm (important as a food plant in the 
north), the doum-palm, the oil-palm, the 
wax-palm, the shea-butter tree, trees yield¬ 
ing caoutchouc, the papyrus, the castor-oil 
plant, indigo, the coffee-plant, heaths with 
beautiful flowers, aloes, etc. Among culti¬ 
vated plants are wheat, maize, millet, and 
other grains, cotton, coffee, cassava, 
ground-nut, yam, banana, tobacco, various 
fruits, etc. As regards both plants and 
animals, northern Africa, adjoining the 
Mediterranean, is distinguished from the 
rest of Africa in its great agreement with 
southern Europe.—Amon^ the most char¬ 
acteristic African animals are the lion, 
hyena, jackal, gorilla, chimpanzee, baboon, 
African elephant (never domesticated, 
yielding much ivory to trade), hip¬ 
popotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, 
quagga, antelopes in great variety and im¬ 
mense numbers.—Among birds are the 
ostrich, the secretary-bird or serpent- 
eater, the honey-guide, cuckoo, sacred ibis, 



Africa 


Africa 


guinea fowl.—The reptiles include the 
crocodile, chameleon, and serpents of 
various kinds, some of them very 
venomous. Among insects are locusts, 
scorpions, the tsetse-fly whose bite is 
fatal to cattle, and to which is attributed 
the deadly sleeping sickness, and white 
ants. 

The great races of which the population 
of Africa mainly consists are the Hamites, 
the Semites, the Negroes, and the Bantus. 
To the Semitic stock belong the Arabs, 
who form a considerable portion of the 
population in Egypt and along the north 
coast, while a portion of the inhabitants 
of Abyssinia are of the same race 
(though the blood is considerably mixed). 
The Hamites are represented by the 
Copts of Egypt, the Berbers, Kabyles, 
etc., of Northern Africa, and the Somali, 
Dan&kil, etc., of East Africa. The Negro 
races occupy a vast territory in the 
Soudan and Central Africa, while the 
Bantus occupy the greater part of South¬ 
ern Africa from a short distance north 
of the equator, and include the Kaffres, 
Bechuanas, Swahili, and allied races. In 
the extreme southwest are the Hottentots 
and Bushmen (the latter a dwarfish 
race). In the central forests is a race 
of dwarfs, usually known as Pygmies. In 
Madagascar there is a large Malay ele¬ 
ment. To these may be added the Fulahs 
on the Niger and the Nubians on the 
Nile and elsewhere, who are of a brownish 
color, and are often regarded as distinct 
from the other races, though sometimes 
classed with the Negroes. In religion 
a great proportion of the inhabitants are 
heathens of the lowest type; Moham¬ 
medanism possesses a large number of 
adherents in North Africa, and is rapidly 
spreading in the Soudan; Christianity 
prevails only among the Copts, the Abys- 
sinians, and the natives of Madagascar, 
the latter having been converted in re¬ 
cent times. Elsewhere the missionaries 
seem to have made but little progress. 
Over great part of the continent civiliza¬ 
tion is at a low ebb, yet in some parts the 
natives have shown considerable skill in 
agriculture and various mechanical arts, 
as in weaving and metal working. Of 
African trade two features are the 
caravans that traverse great distances, 
and the trade in slaves that has long 
prevailed but has now been almost wholly 
brought to an end. Among articles ex¬ 
ported from Africa are palm-oil, dia¬ 
monds, ivory, ostrich feathers, wool, cot¬ 
ton, esparto, caoutchouc, etc. The total 
population is estimated at 170,000,000. 
Of these a small number are of European 
origin—French in Algeria, British and 
Dutch at the south, and growing num¬ 


bers of Europeans in East and West Af¬ 
rica. 

The independent states in Africa are 
Morocco, Abyssinia, and Liberia, the re¬ 
mainder of the continent being largely 
or wholly under foreign jurisdiction. 
Liberia has recently come under American 
influence. To Britain belong the Cape 
and Natal colonies, the former S. African 
Republic and Orange River Free State, 
and Rhodesia, to the north of these; also 
Sierra Leone and other settlements on the 
west coast, and in the east the large region 
of British East Africa and a part of 
Somaliland, while Egypt is under its 
supervision. To France belong Algeria 
and Tunis, Senegambia, much of the 
Sahara, great part of the Central and 
Western Soudan, and a region west of 
the recent Congo Free State. The Portu¬ 
guese hold the west coast of South Africa 
from about lat. 6° s. to 17° s., and the 
east coast from about 10° s. to 27° s. 
Germany now has large regions in the east, 
the southwest and on the Gulf of Guinea. 
To Turkey nominally belong Egypt, 
Barca, and Tripoli. Spain and Italy, 
have possessions on the African coast. 
The Congo Free State ceased to exist 
after November 28, 1907, being annexed 
by the kingdom of Belgium on that date. 

The name Africa was given by the Ro¬ 
mans at first to a small district in the 
immediate neighborhood of Carthage, from 
which it has spread to the whole con¬ 
tinent. The Greeks called Africa Libya, 
and the Romans often used the same 
name. The first African exploring ex¬ 
pedition on record was sent by Pharaoh 
Necho about the end of the seventh 
century b. c. to circumnavigate the con¬ 
tinent. The navigators, who were 
Phoenicians, were absent three years, and 
according to report they accomplished 
their object. Fifty or a hundred years 
later, Hanno, a Carthaginian, made a 
voyage down the west coast and seems 
to have got as far as the Bight of Benin. 
The east coast was probably known to the 
ancients as far as Mozambique and the 
island of Madagascar. Of modern nations 
the Portuguese were the first to take in 
hand the exploration of Africa. In 1433 
they doubled Cape Bojador, in 1441 
reached Cape Blanco, in 1442 Cape 
Verde, in 1462 they discovered Sierra 
Leone. In 1484 the Portuguese Diego 
Cam discovered the mouth of the Congo. 
In 1486 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the 
Cape of Good Hope and reached Algoa 
Bay. A few years later a Portuguese 
traveler visited Abyssinia. In 1497 
Vasco da Gama, who was commissioned 
to find a route by sea to India, sailed 
round the southern extremity as far as 



Africa 


Africa 


Zanzibar, discovering Natal on his way. 
The first European settlements were those 
of the Portuguese in Angola and Mozam¬ 
bique, soon after 1500. In 1650 the 
Dutch made a settlement at the Cape. 
In 1770 James Bruce reached the source 
of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia. For the 
exploration of the interior of Africa, 
however, little was done until the nine¬ 
teenth century. 

Modern African exploration may be 
said to begin with Mungo Park, who 
reached the upper course of the Niger 
(1795-1805). Dr. Lacerda, a Portu¬ 
guese, about the same time reached the 
capital of the Cazembe, in the center of 
South Africa, where he died. In 1802-6 
two Portuguese traders crossed the con¬ 
tinent from Angola, through the Ca- 
zembe’s dominions, to the Portuguese pos¬ 
sessions on the Zambesi. In 1822-24 ex¬ 
tensive explorations were made in North¬ 
ern and Western Africa by Denham, 
Clapperton, and Oudney, who proceeded 
from Tripoli by Murzuk to Lake Tchad, 
and explored the adjacent regions; Laing, 
in 1826, crossed the desert from Tripoli to 
Timbuctoo; Caillig, leaving Senegal, made 
in 1827-28 a journey to Timbuctoo, and 
thence through the desert to Morocco. In 
1830 Lander traced a large part of the 
course of the Niger downward to its 
mouthj discovering its tributary, the 
Benue. In the south Livingstone, who 
was stationed as a missionary at Kolo- 
beng, set out from that place in 1849 and 
discovered Lake Ngami. In 1851 he went 
north again, and came upon numerous 
rivers flowing north, affluents of the 
Zambesi. In 1848 and 1849 Krapf and 
Rebmann, missionaries in East Africa, 
discovered the mountains Kilimanjaro and 
Kenia. An expedition sent out by the 
British government started from Tripoli 
in 1850 to visit the Sahara and the 
regions around Lake Tchad, the chiefs 
being Richardson, Overweg, and Barth. 
The last returned alone in 1855, having 
carried his explorations over 2,000,000 sq. 
miles of this part of Africa, hitherto al¬ 
most unknown. In 1853-56 Livingstone 
made an important series of explorations. 
He first went northwestwards, tracing 
part of the Upper Zambesi, and reached 
St. Paul de Loanda on the west coast in 
1854. On his return journey he followed 
somewhat nearly the same route till he 
reached the Zambesi, and proceeding down 
the river, and visiting its falls, called 
by him the Victoria Falls, he arrived at 
Quilimane at its mouth on 20th May, 
1856, thus crossing the continent from sea 
to sea. In 1858 he resumed his explora¬ 
tion of the Zambesi regions, and in 
various journeys visited Lakes Shirwa 


and Nyassa, sailed up the Shire to the 
latter lake, and established the general 
features of the geography of this part 
of Africa, returning to England in 1864. 
By this time the great lakes of equatorial 
Africa were becoming known, Tanganyika 
and Victoria having been discovered by 
Burton and Speke in 1858, and the latter 
having been visited by Speke and Grant 
in 1862 and found to give rise to the 
Nile, while the Albert Nyanza was dis¬ 
covered by Baker in 1864. In 1866 Liv¬ 
ingstone entered on his last great series of 
explorations, the main object of which 
was to settle the position of the water¬ 
sheds in the interior of the continent, and 
which he carried on till his death in 

1873. His most important explorations on 
this occasion were west and southwest of 
Tanganyika, including the discovery of 
Lakes Bangweolo and Moero. and part 
of the upper course of the river Congo 
(here called Lualaba). For over two 
years he was lost to the knowledge of 
Europe till met with by H. M. Stanley 
(who had been sent to seek him) at 
Tanganyika in 1871. Gerhard Rohlfs, in 
a succession of journeys from 1861 to 

1874, traversed the Sahara in various 

directions, and crossed the continent from 
Tripoli to Lagos by way of Murzuk, 
Bornu, etc. In 1873-75 Lieut. Cameron, 
reached and surveyed Lake Tanganyika, 
explored the country to the west of it, and 
then traveled to the southwest, finally 
reaching Benguela on the Atlantic coast. 
In 1874-77 Stanley went westward from 
Zanzibar to where Livingstone had struck 
the Congo and followed the river down to 
its mouth, thus finally tracing its course 
and completing a remarkable and valuable 
series of explorations. In 1879 Serpa 
Pinto completed a journey across the 
continent from Benguela to Natal, and in 
1881-82 Wissman and Pogge crossed it 
again from St. Paul de Loanda to 

Zanzibar. In 1887-S9 Stanley, sent to 
the rescue of Emin Bey, traversed the 
great equatorial forest, and crossed the 
continent by a new route. This period 
of discovery was followed by a period of 
partition, in which England and France 
were especially active, dividing the 
choicest portions of the continent between 
them with the exception of the great 
Congo Free State, the government of 

which was assigned by the powers to Bel¬ 
gium. Germany, Italy and Spain fol¬ 

lowed until very nearly the whole con¬ 
tinent was appropriated. Within the 

twentieth century an active era of develop¬ 
ment has set in. Railway building is pro¬ 
gressing, considerable progress having been 
made in the building of the Cape-to-Cario 
railway, the European rule is grow- 



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Important towns are shown 
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African Methodist Episcopal Church 


Agassiz 


ing more pronounced, and the British col¬ 
onies in South Africa have combined into 
a federal union. 

African Methodist Episcopal 

PTmrrli organized in Philadelphia in 

ItllUlUl, 1816 withdrew from the M< E . 

Church to have larger privileges and more 
freedom of action. It has general and 
annual conferences, bishops, etc. It ex¬ 
ists principally in the South and numbers 
about 450,000 members. 

African Methodist Episcopal 

Zion Church, organized .in New 
’ York city in 1796. to 
* have an opportunity to exercise their 
spiritual gifts among themselves.’ Lay 
representation is a prominent feature in 
its polity, and women can be ordained as 
preachers. It has now nearly 550,000 
members. 

Africander (af'ri-kan-der), a name 
applied to the descend¬ 
ants of European parents born in South 
Africa. As these are largely of Dutch 
descent, an association called the ‘ Afri¬ 
cander Bund’ became prominent in Cape 
Colony after the Transvaal War, its 
purpose being to extend the political 
influence of the Dutch population. 
A-F'fprdarrm the term applied to the 

iii teraamp, suffocating gas> chiefly 

consisting of carbonic acid gas, which re¬ 
mains in a coal mine after an explosion 
of firedamp. 

A f+AT'crlmxr the brilliant twilight 
/liieigiUW, color seen in the west¬ 
ern sky after sunset. Those seen before 
sunrise are called foreglows. The most 
striking example of the afterglow was 
that which succeeded the volcanic erup¬ 
tion of Krakatoa in 1883, when this 
phenomena was of striking brilliancy and 
duration. It was ascribed to the volume 
of fine volcanic dust spread throughout 
the atmosphere and reflecting the rays 
of the vanished sun, and continued for 
a number of years, being visible at inter¬ 
vals until 1888. 

Ap’flTnemnon (a-ga-mem'non), in 
•figdiiieiiiiiun Qreek mythology> son 

of Atreus, King of Mycenae and Argos, 
brother of Menelaus, and commander of 
the allied Greeks at the siege of Troy. 
He was the father of Orestes, Iphigenia, 
and Electra. 

Asramoerenesis (-jen'e-sis; Gt. a , 

» & pnv., gamos, mar¬ 

riage, genesis, reproduction), the produc¬ 
tion of young without the congress of the 
sexes, one of the phenomena of alternate 
generation. See Generation. 

Ao’ortirmA (-nip*e), a fountain on 
Aganippe Mount He i icon) in Greece, 

5—1 


sacred to the Muses, which had the prop¬ 
erty of inspiring with poetic fire whoever 
drank of it. 

Afraiie (ag'a-pe; Gr. agape , love), 

o B in ecclesiastical history, the 
love-feast or feast of charity, in use 
among the primitive Christians, when a 
liberal contribution was made by the rich 
to feed the poor. During the first three 
centuries love-feasts were held in the 
churches without scandal, but in after¬ 
times the heathen began to tax them with 
impurity, and they were condemned at the 
Council of Carthage in 397. Some 
modern sects, as the Wesleyans, Sande- 
manians, Moravians, etc., have attempt¬ 
ed to revive this feast. 

A'ova r.a'era v a dried sea-weed of the 
A gcll cl get , Asiatic Archipelago, the 

Gracilaria lichenoides, much used in the 
East for soups and jellies, and also by 
the paper and silk manufacturers of 
Eastern Asia as an ingredient in some 
classes of their goods. Used also as a 
culture medium to grow bacteria upon. 

Afi , ar / ie^ J70r * c<< *^ a ^ ar?e an( * * m_ 

u portant genus of fungi, char¬ 
acterized by having a fleshy cap or 
pileus, and a number of radiating plates 
or gills on which are produced the naked 
spores. The majority of this species are 
furnished with stems, but some are at¬ 
tached to the objects on which they grow 
by their pileus. Over a thousand species 
are known, and are arranged in five sec¬ 
tions according as the color of their 
spores is white, pink, brown, purple, or 
black. Many of the species are edible, 
like the common mushroom (A. cam- 
pestris), and supply a delicious article of 
food, while others are deleterious and even 
poisonous. 

Agaric Mineral, 0 U „ N „ T » A 1 

° 7 MEAL, one of 

the purest of the native carbonates of 
lime, found chiefly in the clefts of rocks 
and at the bottom of some lakes in a 
loose or semi-indurated form resembling 
a fungus. The name is also applied to a 
stone of loose consistence found in 
Tuscany, of which bricks may be made so 
light as to float in water, and of which 
the ancients are supposed to have made 
their floating bricks. 

Ao’acci? (ag'as-e), Alexander, only 
son of Louis Agassiz, born 
at Neufchatel, Switzerland, in 1835, died 
March 27, 1910. He became assistant 
and then chief curator of the Museum of 
Comparative Zoology at Harvard. In 
1875 he founded the zoological station at 
Newport, R. I. He was specially distin¬ 
guished for his studies in marine zoology, 
and gained wealth through copper-mining 
enterprises near Lake Superior. 



Agassiz 


Agave 


Ap>flcci 7 Louis John Rudolph, an opal, heliotrope, and carnelian. The vary- 
xxgaaaiZi, eminent naturalist, born ing manner in which these materials are 
1S07, died 1873, son of a Swiss Protestant arranged causes the agate when polished 
clergyman at Motiers, near the eastern to assume some characteristic appear- 
extremity of the Lake of Neufch&tel. He ances, and thus certain varieties are dis- 
completed his education at Lausanne, and tinguished, as the ribbon, agate, the 
early developed a love of the natural fortification agate, the zone agate, the star 
sciences. He studied medicine at Zurich, agate, the moss agate, the clouded agate, 

Heidelberg, and Munich. His attention etc. In Scotland they are cut and 

was first specially directed to ichthyology polished under the name of Scottish 

by being called on to describe the pebbles. 

collection of fishes brought to Europe from A era Eh a rnTin c (ag-a-thar'kus), a noted 
Brazil by Martius and Spix. This work - n -& clL1Ad ' Greek painter, native 

was published in 1829, and was followed of Samos, the first to apply the rules of 
in 1830 by Histoire Naturelle des perspective to theatrical scene-painting; 
Poissons d’eaux douces de VEurope flourished about 480 b. c. 

Centrale (Freshwater Fishes of Central Ap’fltlliaS ( a ‘£a'thi-as), a Greek poet 
Europe). Directing his attention to ‘ n ‘° a and historian, born at My- 

fossil ichthyology, five volumes of his rina, Asia Minor, about 536 a.d. ; author 
Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles of an anthology, a collection of love 
appeared between 1834 and 1844. His re- poems, and a history (553-558 A. D.), 
searches led him to propose a new classifi- which, with all its blemishes, is a valuable 
cation of fishes, which he divided into chronicle of events during an eventful 
four classes, distinguished by the char- period of Roman history, 
acters of the skin, as ganoids, placoids, AffatllOCleS ( a- g a th'o-klez), a Sicilian 

cycloids, and ctenoids. His system has Greek, one of the boldest 

not been generally adopted, but the names adventurers of antiquity, born 361 b. c. 
of his classes have been used as useful By his ability and energy, and being 
terms. In 1836 he began the study of entirely unscrupulous, he raised himself 
glaciers, and in 1840 he published his from the position of a potter to that of 
Etudes sur les Glaciers; in 1847 his sovereign of Syracuse and master of 
Systeme Glaciaire. From 1838 he had Sicily. Wars with the Carthaginians 
been professor of natural history at were the chief events of his life. He died 
Neufch&tel, when in 1846 pressing solicita- (was poisoned) at the age of seventy-two, 
tions and attractive offers induced him to or, as some say, ninety-five, 
settle in America, where he was con- Ap’atllOIl ( a g' a_ thon), or Agatho, a 
nected as a teacher first with Harvard Greek tragic poet, a friend of 

University, Cambridge, and latterly with Euripides, and contemporary with Socra- 
Cornell University as well as Harvard, tes and Alcibiades, born about 447 B. c., 
After his arrival in America he engaged died about 400 b. c. The dinner which 
in various investigations and explorations, he gave to celebrate his first dramatic vic- 
and published numerous works, including: tory was made the groundwork of Plato’s 
Principles of Zoology , in connection with Symposium. 

Dr. A. Gould (1848) ; Contributions to jig'axra (a-ga've), a genus of plants, 

the Natural History of the United States » nat. order Amaryllidacese 

(four vols., 1857-62) ; Zoologie Generate (which includes the daffodil and narcis- 
(1854) ; Methods of Study in Natural sus), popularly known as American aloes. 
History (1863). In 1865-66 he made They are generally large, and have a 
zoological excursions and investigations in massive tuft of fleshy leaves with a spiny 
Brazil, which were productive of most apex. They live for many years—ten to 
valuable results. Agassiz held views on seventy according to treatment—before 
many important points in science different flowering. When this takes place the tall 
from those which prevailed among the flowering stem springs from the center of 
scientific men of the day, and in particular the tuft of leaves, and grows very rapidly 
he strongly opposed the evolution theory, until it reaches a height of 15, 20, or even 
AffaSSiz ( a £' a_ s§), Mount, an extinct 40 feet, bearing in its upper portion a 
® volcano in Arizona, 10,000 large number of flowers. The best-known 

feet in height; a place of summer resort, species is A. americana (common Ameri- 
near the Great Canon of the Colorado, can aloe), introduced into Europe 1561, 
AjT&tG ( a £ ht), a siliceous, semipellucid and now extensively grown in the warmer 
® compound mineral, consisting of parts of that continent as well as in Asia 
bands or layers of various colors blended (India in particular). This and other 
together, the base generally . being species yield various important products, 
chalcedony, and this mixed with variable The sap when fermented yields a beverage 
proportions of jasper, amethyst, quartz, resembling cider, called by the Mexicans 



Agglomerate 


Agde 


pulque. The leaves are used for feeding 
cattle; the fibers of the leaves (sometimes 
called pita hemp or flax) are formed into 



American Aloe (Agave americdna). 


thread, cord, and ropes; an extract from 
the leaves is used as a substitute for soap ; 
slices of the withered flower-stem are 
used as razor-strops. 

Afrde (agd), a seaport of southern 
xx b uc ' France, department of H6rault, 
with a cathedral, an ancient and remark¬ 
able structure. The trade, chiefly coast¬ 
ing, is extensive. Pop. 8827. 

a period of time representing the 
> whole or a part of the duration of 
any individual thing or being, but used 
more specifically in a variety of senses. 
In law age is applied to the periods of 
life when men and women are enabled 
to do that which before, for want of years 
and judgment, they could not legally do. 
Certain rights are acquired in various 
countries at fixed periods of age, full legal 
age in English-speaking countries being 
twenty-one years, which age is completed 
on the day preceding the anniversary of a 
person’s birth, who till that time is an 
infant, and is so styled in law. At full age 
(twenty-one) male citizens in the United 
States can vote, and can hold office except 
in certain special cases, such as a repre¬ 
sentative in Congress, who must be at 
least twenty-five years of age, a senator, 
thirty years, and the president, thirty-five 
years. The military age is from eighteen 
to forty-five years. 

The term is also applied to designate 


the successive epochs or stages of civili¬ 
zation in history or mythology. Hesiod 
speaks of five distinct ages :—1. The golden 
or Saturnian age, a patriarchal and peace¬ 
ful age. 2. The silver age, licentious and 
wicked. 3. The brazen age, violent, sav¬ 
age, and warlike. 4. The heroic age, 
which seemed an approximation to a bet¬ 
ter state of things. 5. The iron age, when 
justice and honor had left the earth. The 
term is also used in such expressions as 
the dark ages, the middle ages, the 
Elizabethan age, etc. 

The Archeeological Ages or Periods are 
three—the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, 
and the Iron Age, these names being 
given in accordance with the materials 
chiefly employed for weapons, implements, 
etc., during the particular period. The 
Stone Age of Europe has been subdivided 
into two—the Palaeolithic or earlier, and 
Neolithic or later. The word age in this 
sense has no reference to the lapse of 
time, but simply denotes the stage at 
which a people has arrived in its progress 
towards civilization ; thus there are races 
still in their stone age. 

Ap , en (a-zhap), one of the oldest 
o towns in France, capital of dep. 
Lot-et-Garonne, on the Garonne, 74 miles 
southeast of Bordeaux ; see of a bishop; 
manufactures sailcloth, woolens and 
linens,.etc., and has an extensive trade. 
Pop. (1906) 18,640. 

Affeilt (a'jent); a person appointed by 
o another to act for or perform 
any kind of business for him, the latter 
being called in relation to the former the 
principal. An agent may be general or 
special. The acts of a general agent bind 
his principal, although the agent may 
violate his private instructions. An 
agent, without special authority, can¬ 
not appoint another person in his 
stead. 

Ap’prfltum (ag-er-a'tum), a genus of 
ilgeid-tuiu composite plants of the 

warmer parts of America, one species of 
which, A. mexicanum, is a well-known 
flower-border annual with dense lavender- 
blue heads. 

Apulians (a-jes-i-la'us). a King of 
ngesiidub gpartar born in 442 B . 0n 

and elevated to the throne after the death 
of his brother, Agis II. He acquired 
renown by his exploits against the Per¬ 
sians, Thebans, and Athenians. Though a 
vigorous ruler, and almost adored by his 
soldiers, he was of small stature and 
lame from his birth. He died in Egypt in 
the winter of 361-360 b. c. Xenophon, 
Plutarch, and Cornelius Nepos are among 
his biographers. 

Agglomerate (a-gWe-rat) in geol- 
00 ogy, a collective name 









Agglutinate Languages 


Agnolo 


for masses consisting of angular frag¬ 
ments ejected from volcanoes. When the 
mass consists of fragments worn and 
rounded by water it is called a con¬ 
glomerate. 

Agglutinate Languages 

languages in which the modifying suffixes 
are, as it were, glued on to the root, both 
it and the suffixes retaining a kind of 
distinctive independence and individual¬ 
ity, as in the Turkish and other Turanian 
languages, and the Basque language. 
Apdirirri or Aughrim (a'grim), a 
® 9 village in the county of Gal¬ 

way in Ireland, memorable for a decisive 
victory gained in the neighborhood, July 
12, 1691, by the forces of William III, 
under Ginkel, over the Irish and French 
troops, under St. Ruth. 

Ag-ila ( a S'i-la), a resinous perfume ob- 
® tained apparently from Aqui- 
laria Agallochum. See Agallochum. 
Aeuncourt (a-zhap-kor), a village of 
Northern France? depart¬ 
ment Pas de Calais, famous for the battle 
of October 25, 1415, between the French 
and English. Henry V, King of England, 
eager to conquer France, landed at Har- 
fleur, took the place by storm, and wished 
to march through Picardy to Calais, but 
was met by a French army under the 
Constable d’Albret. The English num¬ 
bered about 15,000 men, while the French 
numbers are variously stated at from 
50,000 to 150,000. The confined nature 
and softness of the ground were to the 
disadvantage of the French, who were 
drawn up in three columns unnecessarily 
deep. The English archers attacked the 
first division in front and in flank, and 
soon threw them into disorder. The 
second division fled on the fall of the 
Due d’Alencon, who was struck down by 
Henry himself; and the third division fled 
without striking a blow. Of the French 
10,000 were killed, including the Constable 
d’Albret, with six dukes and princes. 
The English lost 1600 men killed, among 
them the Duke of York, Henry’s uncle. 
After the battle the English continued 
their march to Calais. 

Agio (a'Ji-o), the difference between 
® the real and the nominal value of 


money, as between paper money and 
actual coin: an Italian term originally. 
Hence agiotage, speculation on the 
fluctuating differences in such values. 
Affira ( a *j e ' ra L a town of Sicily south- 
13 west of Etna, anciently Agyrium. 
Pop. 17,738. 

Agis ( a '3 is )« the name of four Spartan 
° kings, the most important of whom 
was Agis IV. who succeeded to the 
throne in b. c. 244, and reigned four years. 


He attempted a reform of the abuses 
which had crept into the state—his plan 
comprehending a redistribution of the 
land, a division of wealth, and the can¬ 
celing of all debts. Opposed by his 
colleague Leonidas, advantage was taken 
of his absence in an expedition against the 
^Ftolians, to depose him. Agis at first 
took sanctuary in a temple, but he was 
entrapped and hurriedly executed by his 
rival. 


Agitators, an erroneous form of Adju- 

Afrlaia (a-gla'ya), in Greek mythology, 
& one of the three Graces. 

A on an ft (a-nya'no), formerly a lake of 
o Italy west of Naples, occupy¬ 

ing probably the crater of an extinct 
volcano, but now drained. 

Agnates ( a S' na ts), in the civil law 
® relations on the male side, 

in opposition to cognates, relations on 
the female side. 


Aenes St., a sa ^ nt w h°< according to 
® 9 the story, suffered martyrdom 

because she steadfastly refused to marry 
the son of the prefect of Rome, and 
adhered to her religion in spite of re¬ 
peated temptations and threats, a. d. 303. 
She was first led to the stake, but as the 
flames did not injure her she was be¬ 
headed. Her festival is celebrated on 
the 21st of January. 

Agnesi (d-nya'se), Maria Gaetana, a 
p learned Italian lady, born at 

Milan in 1718. In her ninth year she was 
able to speak Latin, in her eleventh 
Greek; was a university professor. She 
died in 1799. 


Ag*new ( a S >n <>), D. Hayes, surgeon, 
& was born in Lancaster Co., 

Pennsylvania, in 1818; died in 1892. An 
accomplished surgeon, he was a profound 
anatomist, and had wonderful skill and 
ease in operating. He became professor 
of surgery and honorary professor of 
clinical surgery at the University of 
Pennsylvania. He attained a world-wide 
reputation as one of the most skillful 
surgeons of the century, and was the 
author of Practical Anatomy and The 
Principles and Practice of Surgery. 
A^'ni Hindu god of fire, one of the 
& 9 eight guardians of the world, 

and especially the lord of the south¬ 
east quarter. He is celebrated in many 
of the hymns of the Rig Veda. He is 
often represented as of a red or flame 
color, and rides on a ram or a goat. He 
is still worshiped as the personification 
of fire. 


Affnolo, D ’’ Baccio (b&ch'o dan'yo-lo), 
& a Florentine wood-carver, 

sculptor, and architect; designed some of 
the finest palaces, etc., in Florence, such 



Agnomen 


Agouti 


as the Villa Borghese, the Palais 
Bartolini, etc.; born 1460; died 1543. 



Agni— Moore’s Hindu Pantheon. 


Agnomen (ag-nomen) (L.), an ad- 

XXgliuiucu ditioual name given by the 

Romans to an individual in allusion to 
some quality, circumstance, or achieve¬ 
ment by which he was distinguished, as 
Africanus added to P. Cornelius Scipio. 

Ap'nnnp (an-yo'na), a town of S. Italy, 
xxgnunc proy of Molise< famous for 

the excellence of its copper wares. Pop. 
6,606. 

AgnOStiCS (ag-nos'tiks; Gr. a not, 
& gignoskem, to know), a 

modern term applied to those who dis¬ 
claim any knowledge of God or of the 
origin of the universe, holding that the 
mind of man is limited to a knowledge of 
phenomena and of what is relative, and 
that, therefore, the infinite, the absolute, 
and the unconditioned, being beyond all 
experience, are consequently beyond its 
range. 

Ag'nus Cas'tus, a shrub > Vite ® 

o ’ agnuscastus, nat. 

ord. Verbenacese, a native of the Medi¬ 
terranean countries, with white flowers 
and acrid, aromatic fruits. It had an¬ 
ciently the imagined virtue of preserving 
chastity—hence the term castus (L., 
chaste). 

Acrnncj T)pi (de’I; L., ‘the Lamb of 
God’), a term applied to 
Christ in John i, 29, and in the Roman 
Catholic liturgy a prayer beginning with 
the words ‘ Agnus Dei,’ generally sung 
before the communion. The term is also 
commonly given to a medal, or more fre¬ 
quently a cake of wax. consecrated by the 
pope, stamped with the figure of a lamb 
supporting the banner of the cross; sup¬ 
posed to possess great virtues, such as 
preserving those who carry it in faith 
from accidents, etc. 


Aeronic Line < a -f on 'i k > < Gr - ». 

& and goma, an angle), 

in terrestrial magnetism a name applied 
to the line which joins all the places on 
the earth’s surface at which the needle of 


the compass points due north and south, 
without any declination. This line, which 
varies from time to time, at present passes 
through S. America and N. America to the 
Magnetic North Pole, thence to the White 
Sea, south through the Persian Gulf, 
Indian Ocean, and Australia to the 
Southern Magnetic Pole. 

AffOra, (ag'o-ra), the marketplace of a 
® Greek town, corresponding to 

the Roman . forum, . The agora of Athens 
is situated in a valley partially enclosed 
by the Acropolis, Areopagus, Pnyx, and 
Museum. 


Agos'ta. See Augusta. 


Aeouara (a-gu-a'ra), a name given to 
& the crab-eating raccoon 

(Procyon cancrivorus) of S. America. 
Ap’OIllt D ’» (a-go), Marie de Flavigny. 

® Comtesse d’, a French writer 
of fiction, history, politics, philosophy, and 
art; daughter of Viscount de Flavigny; 
born at Frankfort in 1805,* died at Paris 
1876. She contributed many articles to 
the Revue des Deux Mondes, etc., under 
the name of Daniel Stern, and wrote 
Histoire de la Revolution de 18^8; Trois 
Journees de la Vie de Marie Stuart; 
Florence and Turin, a series of artistic 
and political studies; Dante and Goethe; 
dialogues, and numerous romances, etc. 
A^Olltcl (a-go'ta), Solcnodon paradox- 
53 us, an insectivorous mammal 

peculiar to Haiti, of the tanrec family, 
somewhat larger than a rat. It has the 



Agouta (Solenodon paradoxus). 


tail devoid of hair and covered with 
scales, the eyes small, and an elongated 
nose like the shrews. Another species 
( S. Cubanus) belongs to Cuba. 

AeOllti ( a 'ffb'ti), the name of several 
® rodent mammals, forming a 

family by themselves, genus Dasyprocta. 
There are eight or nine species, all be¬ 
longing to S. America and the W. Indies. 
The common agouti, or yellow-rumped 
cavy (D. agouti), is of the size of a rab- 




Agricola 


Agra 


bit. It burrows in the ground or in hol¬ 
low trees, lives on vegetables, doing much 
injury to the sugar-cane, is as voracious 
as a pig. and makes a similar grunting 
noise. Its flesh is white and well tast¬ 
ing. 

ASTa ^"sra), a city of India, in the 
& Northvrest Provinces, on the 
right bank of the Jumna, 841 miles by 
rail from Calcutta. It is a well-built and 
handsome town and has various interest¬ 
ing structures, among which are the im¬ 
perial palace, a mass of buildings erected 
by several emperors; the Moti Masjid or 
Pearl Mosque (both within the old and 
extensive fort) ; the mosque called the 
Jama Masjid (a cenotaph of white mar¬ 
ble) ; and, above all, the Taj Mahal, a 



Section of Taj Mahal, Agra. 


mausoleum of the seventeenth century, 
built by the Emperor Shah Jehan to his 
favorite queen, of white marble, adorned 
throughout with exquisite mosaics. Agra 
has a trade in grain, sugar, etc., and some 
manufactures, including beautiful inlaid 
mosaics. It was founded in 1566 by the 
Emperor Akbar, and was a residence of 
the following emperors for over a century. 
Population 188.022. Agra division has 
an area of 10,139 sq. miles, and a pop. 
of 5,249,542. 

Agraffe ( a 'g ra ^)»a sort Of ornamental 
& buckle, clasp, or similar fast¬ 

ening for holding together articles of 
dress, etc., often adorned with precious 
stones. 

A gram (°g' rom ), or Zagrab, a city 
® in the Austrian Empire, cap¬ 

ital of Croatia and Slavonia, near the 
river Save; contains the residence of the 
ban or governor of Croatia and Slavonia, 
government buildings, cathedral (being 
the see of a Roman Catholic archbishop), 
university, theater, etc.; carries on an 
active trade, and manufactures tobacco, 
leather, and linens. Pop. 57,930. 

Agra'phia. See Aphasia. 


Agrarian Laws 


(a-gra'ri-an), laws 
enacted in ancient 


Rome for the division of the public lands, 
that is, the lands belonging to the State 
(ager publicus ). As the territory of 
Rome increased the public land increased, 
the land of conquered peoples being al¬ 
ways regarded as the property of the con¬ 
queror. The right to the use of this 
public land belonged originally only to 
the patricians or ruling class, but latterly 
the claims of the plebeians on it were also 
admitted, though they were often unfairly 
treated in the sharing of it. Hence arose 
much discontent among the plebeians, and 
various remedial laws were passed with 
more or less success. Indeed, an equitable 
adjustment of the land question between 
the aristocracy and the common people 
was never attained. 


AcrnVnla (a-gric'o-lii), Cneius Jul- 

iigricoia IUS} Hved from A D 37 to 93> 

a Roman consul under the Emperor Ves¬ 
pasian, and governor in Britain, the 
greater part of which he reduced to the 
dominion of Rome; distinguished as a 
statesman and general. His life, written 
by his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, 
gives the best extant account of Britain 
in the early part of the period of the 
Roman rule. He was the twelfth Ro¬ 
man general who had been in Britain, but 
was the only one who effectually sub¬ 
dued the southern portion of it and recon¬ 
ciled the Britons to the Roman yoke. 
This he did by teaching them the arts of 
civilization and to settle in towns. He 
constructed the chain of forts between 
the Forth and the Clyde, defeated Gal- 
gacus at the battle of the Grampians, and 
sailed round the island, discovering the 
Orkneys. 

Acrrip'nla Georg (originally Bauer, 
XiglU, Uid, that ig> cultivator = L. 

agricola ), born in Saxony 1490, died at 
Chemnitz 1555, German physician and 
mineralogist. Though tinged with the 
superstitions of his age, he made the first 
successful attempt to reduce mineralogy 
to a science, and introduced many im¬ 
provements in the art of mining. 
Acrvirnln Johann, the son of a sailor 
& > at Eisleben, was born in 

1492, and called, from his native city, 
master of Eisleben (magister Islebius) ; 
one of the most active among the theolo¬ 
gians who propagated the doctrines of 
Luther. In 1537, when professor in 
Wittenberg, he stirred up the Antinomian 
controversy with Luther and Melanch- 
thon. He afterwards lived at Berlin, 
where he died in 1566, after a life of con¬ 
troversy. Besides his theological works 
he composed a work explaining the com¬ 
mon German proverbs. 



Agricola 


Agriculture 


Ae’ricola J° HANN Friedrich, Ger- 

gi a, man mus }gi an an( j composer, 
born near Altenburg 1720 ; died at Berlin 
1774; pupil of Sebastian Bach; wrote 
several operas, includng Iphigenia in 
Tauris. 

Acrrinnla Rudolphus, German schol- 

g cl, ar ^ j 30rn at Q r oningen 1442; 

died at Heidelberg 1485. After travel¬ 
ing in France and Italy he was appointed 
professor of philosophy at Heidelberg, 
and did good service in transplanting the 
revived classical learning into Germany. 

Ap’rirnltnrp (ag'ri-kul-tur), is the art 
xlgllLUllUIC of cu iti va ting the ground 

in order to raise grain and other crops 
for man and beast; including the art of 
preparing the soil, sowing and planting 
seeds, removing the crops, and also the 
raising and feeding of cattle and other 
live stock. This art is in all countries 
coeval with the first dawn of civilization. 
At how remote a period it must have been 
successfully practised in Egypt, Meso¬ 
potamia, and China we have no means of 
knowing. Egypt was renowned as a corn 
country in the time of the Jewish 
patriarchs, who themselves were keepers 
of flocks and herds rather than tillers of 
the soil. Among the ancient Greeks the 
implements of agriculture were very few 
and simple. Hesiod, the earliest writer 
on agriculture, wrote a poem on this sub¬ 
ject as early as the eighth century B.C., 
and speaks of a plow consisting of three 
parts, the share-beam, the draught-pole, 
and the plow-tail, but antiquarians are 
not agreed as to its exact form. The 
ground received three plowings, one in 
autumn, another in spring, and a third 
immediately before sowing the seed. 
Manures were applied, and the advan¬ 
tage of mixing soils, as sand with clay or 
clay with sand, was understood. Seed 
was sown by hand, and covered with a 
rake. Grain was reaped with a sickle, 
bound in sheaves, thrashed, then win¬ 
nowed by wind, laid in chests, bins or 
granaries, and taken out as wanted by 
the family, to be ground. Evidently the 
art had made considerable progress by 
that early date. Agriculture was highly 
esteemed among the ancient Romans. 
Cato, the censor, who was celebrated as 
a statesman, orator, and general, derived 
his highest honors from having written a 
voluminous work on agriculture. In his 
Georgies Virgil has thought the subject 
of agriculture worthv of being treated in 
the most graceful and harmonious verse. 
The Romans used a great many different 
implements of agriculture. The plow is 
represented by Cato as of two kinds, one 
for strong, the other for light soils. 
Varro mentions one with two mold-boards. 


with which, he says, ‘ when they plow 
after sowing the seed, they are said to 
ridge.’ Pliny mentions a plow with 
one mold-board, and others with a 
coulter, of which he says there were 
many kinds. Fallowing was a practice 
rarely deviated from by the Romans. 
In most cases a fallow and a year’s crop 
succeeded each other. Manure was col¬ 
lected from nearly or quite as many 
sources as have been resorted to by the 
moderns. Irrigation on a large scale was 
applied both to arable and grass lands. 

The Romans introduced their agricul¬ 
tural knowledge among the Britons and 
other peoples of Europe, and during the 
most flourishing period of the Roman oc¬ 
cupation large quantities of corn were ex¬ 
ported from Britain to the Continent. 
During the time that the Angles and 
Saxons were extending their conquests 
over the British island agriculture must 
have been greatly neglected; but after¬ 
wards it was practised with some success 
among the Anglo-Saxon population, es¬ 
pecially. as was generally the case during 
the middle asres, on lands belonging to the 
church. Swine formed at this time a 
most important portion of the live stock, 
finding plenty of oak and beech mast to 
eat. The feudal system, though benefi¬ 
cial in some respects as tending to ensure 
the personal security of individuals, oper¬ 
ated powerfully against progress in agri¬ 
cultural improvements. War and the 
chase, the two ancient and deadliest foes 
of husbandry, formed the most prominent 
occupations of the feudal princes and 
nobles. Thriving villages and smiling 
fields were converted into deer forests, 
vexatious imposts were laid on the farm¬ 
ers, and the serfs had no interest in the 
cultivation of the soil. But the monks of 
every monastery retained such of their 
lands as they could most conveniently 
take charge of, and these they cultivated 
with great care, under their own inspec¬ 
tion, and frequently with their own hands. 
The various operations of husbandry, 
snrh as manuring, plowing sowing, 
harrowing, reaping, thrashing winnow¬ 
ing, etc., are incidentally mentioned by 
the writers of those days; but it is impos¬ 
sible to collect from them a definite ac¬ 
count of the manner in which those 
operations were performed. 

The first English treatise on husbandry 
and the best of early modern works on 
the subject was published in the reign of 
Henry VIII (in 1534), by Sir A. Fitz- 
herbert, judge of the Common Pleas. It 
is entitled the Booh of Husbandry, 
and contains directions for draining, 
clearing, and inclosing a farm, for en¬ 
riching the soil, and rendering it fit for 




Agriculture 


Agriculture 


tillage. Lime, marl, and fallowing are 
strongly recommended. About 1645 the 
field cultivation of red clover was intro¬ 
duced into England, the merit of this im¬ 
provement being due to Sir Richard 
Weston, author of a * Discourse on the 
Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders.’ 
The Dutch had devoted much attention 
to the improvement of winder roots, and 
also to the cultivation of clover and other 
artificial grasses, and the farmers and 
proprietors of England soon saw the ad¬ 
vantages to be derived from their intro¬ 
duction. The cultivation of clover soon 
spread, and Sir Richard Weston seems 
also to have introduced turnips. Potatoes 
had been introduced during the latter 
part of the sixteenth century. In the 
eighteenth century the first name of im¬ 
portance in British agriculture is that 
of Jethro Tull, who advocated the sowing 
of crops in rows or drills with an interval 
between every two or three rows wide 
enough to allow of plowing or hoeing. 
By the end of the century it was a com¬ 
mon practice to alternate green crops 
with grain crops, instead of exhausting the 
land with a number of successive crops of 
corn. A well-known writer on agriculture 
at this period, and one who did a great 
deal of good in diffusing a knowledge of 
the subject, was Arthur Young. In Eu¬ 
rope at large the principal cereals at pres¬ 
ent are wheat, oats, maize, barley, and 
rye, wheat being mainly grown in the mid¬ 
dle and southern regions, such as France, 
Spain, part of Germany, Austria, Hun¬ 
gary, Italy, and southern Russia, oats, 
barley and rye in the more northern por¬ 
tion, while maize is grown in the warmest 
parts. The most important of the cereals 
are wheat, rice and maize, the first being 
grown largely in the United States, 
Canada, Argentina and Australia; the 
second in China, .lanan and India ; and 
the last in the United States and Mexico. 

The vast territory of the United States 
presents every variety of soil and climate. 
Its agriculture embraces all the products 
of European cultivation, together with 
some of those of the warmer countries, 
as cotton, sugar, and indigo. The agricul¬ 
tural implements are, in many respects, 
similar to those of Great Britain and 
France, but, as a general rule, those of the 
United States exceed all others in their 
wonderful adaptation for all purposes of 
cultivation and harvesting of crops. So 
successful have been our farming im¬ 
plements in repeated contests on Euro¬ 
pean soil that their rapid introduction 
into foreign markets has been somewhat 
impeded by the great demand at home. 
The disposition of the American to ex¬ 
periment, to test alleged improvements, 


and adopt labor-saving expedients, gives 
a great impulse to the genius of inven¬ 
tors. This mental activity of the Amer¬ 
ican farmer is due in great part to his 
superior intelligence. 

The American reaper was invented by 
McCormick in 1834; by many improve¬ 
ments it has secured the European as well 
as the home market. In 1855 the first 
American agricultural college was estab¬ 
lished. In 1862 the passage of the Home¬ 
stead law served to accelerate the occupa¬ 
tion of the public lands. In the same 
year Congress granted to each State 
30,000 acres for each Senator and Repre¬ 
sentative in Congress in order to promote 
the liberal and practical education of the 
industrial classes. In 1867 the organiza¬ 
tion of the Patrons of Husbandry, com¬ 
monly called Grangers, was effected, to 
look after the interests of farmers, to 
reduce the profits of middlemen, and to 
insist on fair treatment from the rail¬ 
roads. The American dairy system, based 
on the prinoiole of association, has ad¬ 
vanced rapidly. Agricultural societie.s, 
both State and county, are established in 
all parts of the United States. The ob¬ 
jects of these societies are such as the 
following: to encourage the introduction 
of improvements in agriculture; to en¬ 
courage the improvements in agricultural 
implements and farm buildings; the ap¬ 
plication of chemistry to agriculture; the 
destruction of insects injurious to vegeta¬ 
tion ; to promote the discovery and adop¬ 
tion of new varieties of grain, or other 
useful vegetables; to collect information 
regarding the management of "woods, 
plantations, and fences; to improve the 
education of those supported by the cul¬ 
tivation of the soil; to improve the veteri¬ 
nary art; to improve the breeds of live 
stock, etc. Fairs are held, at which 
prizes are distributed for live stock, im¬ 
plements, and farm produce. 

Through the efforts of the above-men¬ 
tioned and other societies, the investiga¬ 
tions of scientific men, and the general 
diffusion of knowledge among all classes, 
over two hundred periodicals being de¬ 
voted to its interests, agriculture has 
made great progress during the recent 
centuries. Among the chief improve¬ 
ments we may mention deep plowing and 
thorough draining. By the introduction 
of new or improved implements the labor 
necessary to the carrying out of agricul¬ 
tural operations has been greatly dimin¬ 
ished. Science, too, has been called in 
to act as the handmaid of art, and it is 
by the investigations of the chemist that 
agriculture has been put on a really scien¬ 
tific basis. The organization of plants, 
the primary elements of which they are 



Agriculture 


Agrippina 


composed, the food on which they live, 
and the constituents of soils, have all 
been investigated, and most important 
results obtained, particularly in regard 
to manures and rotations. Artificial 
manures, in great variety, to supply the 
elements wanted for plant growth, have 
come into common use, not only increas¬ 
ing the produce of lands previously cul¬ 
tivated, but extending the limits of cul¬ 
tivation itself. An improvement in all 
kinds of stock is becoming more and more 
general, feeding is conducted on more 
scientific principles, and improved 
varieties of plants used as field crops 
have been introduced. One of the recent 
developments in the United States is the 
introduction of the system of ensilage for 
preserving fodder in a green state, which 
has given valuable results, and Silos are 
adjuncts of modern farms throughout the 
country. 

As a result of the new conditions, to 
be a thoroughly trained and competent 
agriculturist requires a special education, 
partly theoretical, partly practical. In 
particular, no scientific cultivator can 
now be ignorant of agricultural chemistry, 
which teaches the constituents of the va¬ 
rious plants grown as crops, their rela¬ 
tion to the various soils, the nature and 
function of different manures, etc. In 
some countries there are now agricultural 
schools or colleges supported by the State- 
In the United States nearly all the States 
have colleges, or departments of colleges, 
devoted to the teaching of agriculture, 
and large allotments of public land have 
been made for their support. In Ger¬ 
many such institutions are numerous and 
highly efficient, and in Europe generally 
the ground is cultivated more closely and 
yields more largely than in the United 
States. For teaching agriculture practi¬ 
cally model farms have been widely 
established. 


Acrrinnltnrp Department of, first 
iigiicuiiuie, established by Con . 

gress as a commissionership in 1862, was 
changed to a government department in 
1889, having a Cabinet officer, the Secre¬ 
tary of Agriculture, at its head. It dif¬ 
fuses matter deemed advantageous to 
agricultural interests by issuing monthly 
and annual reports throughout the coun¬ 
try. Seeds and plants are purchased 
and propagated, which are afterwards dis¬ 
tributed to the people of the United 
States by the Representatives and Sena¬ 
tors. It has two bureaus—Animal 
Industry and Weather Bureau ; an office 
of experiment stations, many divisions, 
an herbarium museum, library and propa¬ 
gating grounds. At the latter plants 
received in exchange from foreign gov¬ 


ernments, botanic gardens and private 
persons are tested as to their suitability 
for being introduced in the United States. 
By this means many new and useful 
plants have become known here. Agricul¬ 
tural experiment stations have been in¬ 
troduced into all the States and terri¬ 
tories. Instruction in agriculture is wide¬ 
spread. State and county agricultural 
fairs are very common, and through these 
varied means the art of agriculture is 
being popularized and is rapidly advanc¬ 
ing. 


Ap-nVentlim (a-gri-j&n'tum), an an- 
ngrigentum cient Greek city of 

Sicily (the modern Girgenti ), founded 
about 580 B. c.. and long one of the most 
important places on the island. Exten¬ 
sive ruins of splendid temples and public 
buildings yet attest its ancient magnifi¬ 
cence. See Girgenti. 

A rr'ri vnan v (Agrintonia ), a genus 
Iliiiuii.y p] an ts, natural order 

Rosaceae, consisting of slender perennial 
herbs found in temperate regions. A. 
eupatoria, or common agrimony, was 
formerly of much repute as a medicine. 
Its leaves and root-stock are astringent, 
and the latter yields a yellow dye. 
ApriDDfl. (a-grip'pa), Cornelius 
Henry, born in 1489, at 
Cologne, was a man of talents, learning, 
and eccentricity. In his youth he was 
secretary to the Emperor Maximilian I ; 
he subsequently served seven years in 
Italy, and was knighted. On quitting 
the army he devoted himself to science, 
and became famous as a magician and 
alchemist, and was involved in disputes 
with the churchmen. After an active, 
varied, and eventful life he died at Gre¬ 
noble in 1535. 


Agrippa, Herod. See Herod Agrippa. 

Aprirma Marcus Vipsanius, a Ro- 
xx & A - L Pr a > man statesman and general, 
the son-in-law of Augustus; born b. c. 63, 
died b. c. 12. He was praetor in b. c. 41: 
consul in 37, 28, and 27; aedile in 33; and 
tribune from 18 till his death. He com¬ 
manded the fleet of Augustus in the battle 
of Actium. To him Rome is indebted for 
three of her principal aqueducts, the 
Pantheon, and several other works of pub¬ 
lic use and ornament. 

APTirmilia (ag-rip-pi'na), the name of 
several Roman ladies, 
among whom we may mention :—1. The 
youngest daughter of Marcus Vipsaniug 
Agrippa, and wife of C. Oermanicus: a 
heroic woman, adorned with great vir¬ 
tues. Tiberius, who hat^d her for her 
virtues and popularitv, banished her to 
the island of Pandataria, where she 
starved herself to death in a. d. 33.-2. 



Agrostemma 


Ahasuerus 


A daughter of the last mentioned, and 
the mother of Nero, by Domitius Aheno- 
barbus. Her third husband was her 
uncle, the Emperor Claudius, whom she 
subsequently poisoned to secure the gov¬ 
ernment of the empire through her son 
Nero. After ruling a few years in her 
son’s name he became tired of her as¬ 
cendency, and caused her to be assas¬ 
sinated (a.d. 60). 

Agrostem'ma. See Lychnis . 


Aerostis (a-gros'tis), a genus of 
® grasses, consisting of many 

species, and valuable as pasture and lawn 
grasses. The bent-grasses belong to the 
genus. 


Ap’fplpk (ag'te-lek), a village in Hun- 
xigtcic gary> near the road from 

Pesth to Kaschau, with about 600 in¬ 
habitants, celebrated for one of the larg¬ 
est and most remarkable stalactitic cav¬ 
erns in Europe. 

AgTia (ag'wa), an active volcano of 
& Central America, in Guatemala, 
rising to the height of 15,000 feet. It 
has twice destroyed the old city of Guate¬ 
mala, in its immediate vicinity. 

AgUara (&-gwa'r&). See Agouara. 


Aguardiente W-trwitr-dfren’te), a 

° popular spirituous bev¬ 

erage of Spain and Portugal, a kind of 
coarse brandy, made from red wine, from 
the refuse of the grapes left in the wine¬ 
press, etc., generally flavored with anise; 
also a Mexican alcoholic drink distilled 
from the fermented juice of the agave. 

Aguas Calientes (ag'was ka-le-en'- 

° tas; lit. warm 

waters’), a town 270 miles n. w. of 
Mexico, capital of the state of its own 
name, named from the thermal springs 
near it; has manufactures of cottons and 
a considerable trade. Pop. 30,052. 
AiTUe (a'gu), malarial or intermittent 
6 fever. See Malaria. 

Ague-cake, , a tumor caused by en- 
° ’ largement and hardening 

of the spleen, often the consequence 
of ague, or intermittent or malaria 
fever. 


Aguesseau (4-ges-o). hens 

Francois, a distinguishe 
hrench .iurist and statesman, born { 
Limoges in 1668; was in 1690 advocat 
general at Paris, and at the age of thirt’ 
two procureur-ggnSral of the parliamen 
He risked disgrace with Louis XIV, fc 
successfully. opposing the famous pap; 
bull Umgenitus. He was made chance 
lor in 1 <17, and was several times n 
moved and restored, finally holding th 
office from 1737 to 1750. He died i 
1751. 


Ao’nilar (d-ge-lar'), a town of Spain, 
u province of Cordova, in An¬ 
dalusia, in a good wine-producing dis¬ 
trict, and with a trade in corn and wine. 
Pop. 13,330. 

A miliar (a.-gi-la.r'), Grace, an Eng- 
25 lish w’riter, born at Hackney 

1816 ; died at Frankfort 1847. Of Jewish 
parentage, she at first devoted herself to 
Jewish subjects, but her fame rests on 
her novels, Home Influence, A Mother's 
Recompense, Home Scenes and Heart 
Studies, etc., most of which were pub¬ 
lished posthumously under the editorship 
of her mother. 


A^UllaS a flourishing sea- 

° u port of southern Spain, prov¬ 
ince of Murcia, with copper and lead 
smelting works. Pop. 13,236. 


Afminaldn (a-gwi-nal'do), Emilio, 
AgUilldiuu Philippine leader, born at 

Cavite, Luzon Island, in 1869. In 1896 
he became active as an insurrectionist 
against the Spanish rule, and was chosen 
President of the patriotic Tagal Re¬ 
public. After the capture of Manila by 
the Americans he became the leader in an 
insurrection against them, and conducted 
the subsequent war with signal ability, 
considering his paucity of means and the 
character of his troops. His army being 
dispersed, he carried on a guerrilla war¬ 
fare, until captured by General Funston, 
March 23, 1901. Since then he has lived 
as a quiet but influential citizen. 
AmilhflS (a-gul'yas), Cape, a promon- 
o tory, forming the most south¬ 

ern extremity of Africa, about 90 miles 
southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, ris¬ 
ing to 455 feet above the sea, with a 
lighthouse. 


Agu'ti. See Agouti. 


Ah ah (a'hab), the seventh King of Is¬ 
rael, succeeded his father Omri 
928 B. C., and reigned twenty years. At 
the instigation of his wife Jezebel he 
erected a temple to Baal, and became a 
cruel persecutor of the true prophets. 
He was killed by an arrow at the siege 
of Ramoth-Gilead. 

AhflP’P’nr (a-hag'gar), a mountainous 
xxnaggax region of the Sahara? gouth 

of Algeria, with some fertile valleys, in¬ 
habited by the Tuaregs. 

Ahasuerus (a-has-yu-e'rus), in Scrip- 
ture history, a King of 
Persia, probably the same as Xerxes, the 
husband of Esther, to whom the Scrip¬ 
tures ascribe a singular deliverance of the 
Jews from extirpation.— Ahasuerus is 
also a Scripture name for Cambyses, 
the son of Cyrus (Ezra, iv, 6), and 
for Astyages, King of the Medes (Dan. 

IX, 1). 



Ahaz 


Aigrette 


Ahaz ( a ^ az )> the twelfth King of Ju¬ 
dah, succeeded his father Jotham, 
742 b.c. Forsaking the true religion he 
gave himself up completely to idolatry, 
and plundered the temple to obtain pres¬ 
ents for Tiglath-pileser, King of As¬ 
syria. 

AKa- 7 -iaTi (a-ha-zl'a) :—1. Son of Ahab 
xllldZldll and je^be^ and eighth King 

of Israel, died from a fall through a lat¬ 
tice in his palace at Samaria after reign¬ 
ing two years (b. c. 896, 895).—2. Fifth 
King of Judah, and nephew of the above. 
He reigned but one year, and was slain 
(b. c. 884) by Jehu. 

Ahithophel (a-hith'o-M), privy-coun- 

eilor to David, and con¬ 
federate and adviser of Absalom in his 
rebellion against his father. When 
Hushai’s advice prevailed, Ahithophel, de¬ 
spairing of success, hung himself. 

Ahmedabad, ?. r u . A ;' MAD * EAD 

7 a-bad ), a town of India, 
presidency of Bombay, in district of its 
own name, on the left bank of the S&bar- 
matf, 310 miles north of Bombay. It 
was founded in 1412 by Ahmed Shah, 
and was converted by him into a great 
capital, adorned with splendid edifices. It 
came finally into the hands of the British 
in 1818. It is still a handsome and pop¬ 
ulous place, enclosed by a wall, with 
many noteworthy buildings: manufac¬ 
tures of fine silk and cotton fabrics, cloths 
of gold and silver, pottery, paper, enamel, 
mother-of-pearl, etc. Pop. 185,889. 

Ahmed Mirza _ m4r >K Sl !>- 

tan of Persia, born in 
1897. His father, Mohammed Ali Mirza, 
was deposed by revolutionaries July 16, 
1909, and his son, a boy of 12, raised to 
the vacant throne under the regency of 
his uncle. 

Ahmednagar (a-med ; na'gar) a town 

° of India, presidency of 
Bombay, in district of its own name, of 
commonplace appearance, surrounded by 
an earthen wall; with manufactures of 
cotton and silk cloths. Near the city is 
the fort, built of stone and 1 mile round. 
Pop. 43,032. 

Ahmed Shah ( d ^d m i 773 , b f°ou n nder“tf 

the Dur^ni dynasty in Afghanistan. On 
the assassination of Nadir he proclaimed 
himself shah, and set about subduing the 
provinces surrounding his realm. Among 
his first acts was the securing of the 
famed Koh-i-noor diamond, which had 
fallen into the hands of his predecessor. 
He crossed the Indus in 1748, and his 
conquests in northern India culminated 
in the defeat of the Mahrattas at Pani- 
pat (6th Jan., 1761). Affairs in his own 
country necessitated his withdrawal from 


India, but he extended his empire in other 
directions far beyond the limits of mod¬ 
ern Afghanistan. He was succeeded by 
his son Timur. 

Ahriman ( a,r i _man ; in the Zend i»- 

gromainyus , ‘ spirit of evil 
or annihilation,’), according to the dual- 
istic doctrine of Zoroaster, the origin or 
the personification of evil, sovereign of 
the Devas or evil spirits, lord of darkness 
and of death, being thus opposed to Or- 
muzd (Ahuramazda ), the spirit of good 
and of light. 

Ah.WaS ( a,waz )> a small Persian town 
on the river Karun, province 
of Khuzistan. in the immediate neighbor¬ 
hood of which are the vast ruins of a 
city, ascribed to the time of the Parthian 
empire, extending for 12 miles along the 
river side. Pop. 2,000. 

Ai (a'e). See Sloth. 


Aid ( a ^). a subsidy paid in the feudal 
period by vassals to their lords on 
certain occasions, the chief of which 
were: when their lord was taken prisoner 
and required to be ransomed, when his 
eldest son was to be made a knight, and 
when his eldest daughter was to be mar¬ 
ried and required a dowry. From the 
Norman conquest to the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury the collecting of aids by the crown 
was one of the forms of taxation, being 
latterly regulated by parliament. 

Aid ail Saint (a'dan), Bishop of Lin- 
mucl 9 disfarne, was originally a 
monk of Iona, in which monastery Os¬ 
wald I, who became King of Northumber¬ 
land in 635, had been educated. At the 
request of Oswald, Aidan was sent to 
preach Christianity to his subjects, and 
established himself in Lindisfarne as the 
first of the line of bishops now designated 
of Durham. He died in 651. 

Aidp-dp-rarrm (ad-de-kan), a mili- 
mue ue cdinp tary officer who <, on - 

veys the orders of a general to the various 
divisions of the army on the field of bat¬ 
tle, and at other times acts as his sec¬ 
retary and general confidential agent. 
Aid-in ('a-i-den'), or Guzel Hissar, a 
XXAU 1 town in Asiatic Turkey, about 
60 miles southeast of Smyrna, with 
which it is connected by rail; has fine 
mosques and bazaars, is the residence of 
a pasha, and has manufactures of mo¬ 
rocco leather and an extensive trade in 
cotton, leather, figs, grapes, etc. Pop. 
35,000. 

Aicrrpt+p (a'gret) (French), a term 
o used to denote the feathery 

crown attached to the seeds of various 
plants, such as the thistle, dandelion, etc. 
(called in botany pappus ).—It is also 
applied to any head-dress in the form of 



Aigues Mortes 


Ainsworth 


a plume, whether composed of feathers, 

flowers, or precious stones. 

AlP’IIPS Mortes ( a & mort; L. Aquce 
mgues moitcb Uortu ^ « dead wa . 

ters’), a small town of southern France, 
near the mouths of the Rhone, depart¬ 
ment of Gard; with ancient walls and 
castle; near it are lagoons, from which 
great quantities of salt are secured. Pop. 
(1906) 3577. 

AiffUille C^'gwil; Fr., lit. a needle), a 
® name given in the Alps to 

the needle-like points or tops of granite, 
gneiss, quartz, and other crystalline rocks 
and mountain masses; also applied to 
sharp-pointed masses of ice on glaciers 
and elsewhere. It is also the name given 
to an inaccessible French mountain in 
Is£re, 6,500 feet high. 

AiS’Ull (i'gun'), a town of China, in 
& Manchuria, on the Amur, with 
a good trade. Pop. 15,000. 

Allan (a'kin), John, an English doc¬ 
tor and writer, born in 1747, 
died in 1822. He practised as a phy¬ 
sician at Chester, Warrington, and Lon¬ 
don ; turned his attention to literature 
and published various works of a miscel¬ 
laneous description, including the popu¬ 
lar Evenings at Home (1792-95), writ¬ 
ten with the view of popularizing scien¬ 
tific subjects. His General Biographical 
Dictionary was begun in 1799 and fin¬ 
ished in 1815. 

Aikmail (ak'man), William, an emi¬ 
nent Scottish portrait-paint¬ 
er ; born in Forfarshire in 1682; died in 
1731. He studied at Edinburgh and in 
Italy, visited Turkey, and spent the later 
portion of his life in London, where he 
enjoyed the friendship of most of the dis¬ 
tinguished men of Queen Anne’s time. 
Ailantn Ailanthus (a-lan'thus), a 
’ tree, genus Ailantus, nat. ord. 
Simarubaceae. The A. glandulosa, a large 
and handsome tree, with pinnate leaves 
one or two feet long, is a native of China, 
but has been introduced into Europe and 
the United States, where it is in favor for 
its elegant foliage. A species of silk¬ 
worm, the ailanthus silkworm ( Saturnia 
cynthia), feeds on its leaves, and the ma¬ 
terial produced, though wanting the fine¬ 
ness and gloss of mulberry silk, is pro¬ 
duced at less cost, and is more durable. 
The wood is hard, heavy, glossy, and 
susceptible of a fine polish. 

Ailred (^l' re d), (contracted form of 
Ethelred), a religious and his¬ 
torical writer, born 1109; died 1166; ab¬ 
bot of Rievaulx, in the north riding of 
Yorkshire. Wrote lives of Edward the 
Confessor and St. Margaret, Queen of 
Scotland, Genealogy of the Kings of Eng¬ 
land, The Battle of the Standard, etc. 


Alisa Craip’( al ' sa cra S)> a rocky islet 
Alibd in the Firth of Clyde? lf) 

miles from the coast of Ayr, of a conical 
form, 1097 feet high, and about 2 miles 
in circumference, precipitous on all sides 
except the northeast, where alone it is 
accessible, frequented by innumerable sea- 
fowl, including solan-geese, and covered 
with grass. On it is a lighthouse. 

Ailu'rus. See Panda. 

Aimard (a-mar), Gustave, a French 

ziimciiu nov?list; born in 1818> died 

in 1883. He lived for ten years among 
the Indians of North America, and wrote 
a number of stories dealing with Indian 
life, which have been popular in English 
translations. 

Ain ( a bh a southeastern frontier de¬ 
partment of France, mountainous 
in the east (ridges of the Jura), flat or 
undulating in the west, divided into two 
nearly equal parts by the river Ain, a 
tributary of the Rhone; area, 2248 
square miles. Capital, Bourg. Pop. 345,- 
856. The Ain river (118 miles long) 
traverses its center. 

A inTnii 11 at (in'miil-er), Max Eman- 
.ra-miii unci UEL> a German artist who 

may be regarded as the restorer of the 
art of glass-painting; born 1807, died 
1870. As inspector of the state institute 
of glass-painting at Munich he raised this 
art to a high degree of perfection by the 
new or improved.processes introduced by 
him. His son Heinrich, born 1837, gained 
a high reputation in the same field. 
Ainos (i ' n0z ; ^ at * s ’ men )> the native 
name of an uncivilized race of 
people inhabiting the Japanese island of 
Yesso, as also Saghalien, and the Kurile 
Islands, and believed to be the aboriginal 
inhabitants of Japan. They do not aver¬ 
age over 5 feet in height, but are strong 
and active. They have matted beards 5 
or 6 inches in length, and black hair 
which they allow to grow till it falls over 
their shoulders. Their complexion is 
dark brown, approaching to black. They 
worship the sun and moon, and pay rev¬ 
erence to the bear. They support them¬ 
selves by hunting and fishing. 

Ainsworth (anz'worth). Henry, a 
Puritan divine and schol¬ 
ar ; born 1571, died 1622. He passed a 
great part of his life in Amsterdam, being 
from 1610 pastor of a ‘ Brownist * 
church there (the Brownists being fore¬ 
runners of the Independents). He was 
a voluminous writer, a controversialist 
and commentator, and a thorough Hebrew 
scholar. 

Ainsworth, 5 1 ( ?f ER 1 T A P ^ or ?. ia £ anc . a - 

> shire, 1660 ; died there in 
1743. He is principally known as the 



Ainsworth 


Air-brake 


author of a long-popular Latin and Eng¬ 
lish dictionary. 

Aincwnrtli William Francis, an 
/lillbWUIUl, Engligh p hysiciani geolo¬ 
gist, and traveler; born 1807. He was 
surgeon and geologist to the Euphrates 
expedition under Col. Chesney, and pub¬ 
lished Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, 
and Chaldea (1838), Travels in Asia 
Minor, Mesopotamia, and Armenia 
(1842), Travels in the Track of the Ten 
Thousand Greeks (1844), etc. Died 
1896. 

A incwnrtTi William Harrison, an 
Ainswortn, English novelist ; born in 

1805, died in 1882. He was the son of a 
Manchester solicitor, and intended for the 
profession of law, but devoted himself to 
literature. He wrote Rookwood (1834), 
Jack Sheppard (1839), and about forty 
other novels. 

Ain-Tah (a-in-tab'), a town of North¬ 
ern idu ern gyria> 6Q mileg north of 

Aleppo; with manufactures of cottons, 
woolens, leather, etc., and an extensive 
trade. There is here an American Prot¬ 
estant mission. Pop. about 45,000. 

Air ( ar ) 5 the gaseous substance of 

which our atmosphere consists, be¬ 
ing a mechanical mixture of 77.00 per 
cent, by measure of nitrogen, 20.75 per 
cent, of oxygen, argon (0.75-0.801, car¬ 
bon dioxide, water-vapor (0.5-1.5). and 
traces of ammonia, sulphur dioxide, nitric 
acid, and other minor constituents. 
Oxygen is absolutely essential to animal 
life while nitrogen serves to dilute it 
and is essential to plant life, though 
not in its gaseous state. Oxygen is 
more soluble in water than nitrogen, and 
hence the air dissolved in water con¬ 
tains about 10 per cent, more oxygen than 
atmospheric air. The oxygen, therefore, 
available for those animals which breathe 
by gills is somewhat less diluted with 
nitrogen, but it is very much diluted with 
water. For the various properties and 
phenomena connected with air see such 
articles as Atmosphere, Aeronautics, Air- 
pump, Barometer, Combustion, Respira¬ 
tion, etc. 

iu music (in Italian, aria), a con- 
, tinuous melody, in which some lyric 
subject or passion is expressed. The 
lyric melody of a single voice, accom¬ 
panied by instruments, is its proper form 
of composition. Thus we find it in the 
higher order of musical works; as in can¬ 
tatas, oratorios, operas, and also inde¬ 
pendently in concertos. Air is also the 
name often given to the upper or most 
prominent part in a concerted piece, and 
is thus equivalent to treble, soprano, etc. 

Air, or Asben. See Asben. 


Aira. See Hair-grass. 

Air Beds and Cushions,by^sick 

and invalids, are composed of India rub¬ 
ber or of cloth made air-tight by a solu¬ 
tion of India rubber, and when required 
for use filled with air, which thus sup¬ 
plies the place of the usual stuffing ma¬ 
terials. 

Air-bladder. See Swimming-bladder. 

blast current of air forced upon 
* a fire to stimulate combus¬ 
tion, or on a dynamo commutator to pre¬ 
vent sparking. 

brake an a PP ara tus for utilizing 
\ the force of compressed 
air in applying brakes to the wheels 
of railroad cars to check the move¬ 
ment of the train. By this means a 
power enormously exceeding that of the 
old hand-brake can be applied, the train 
being quickly brought to a stop. The or¬ 
iginal air-brake was patented in 1869 by 
George Westinghouse, of Pittsburg, Pa., 
and has since then been greatly improved. 





Quick-action Triple Valve. 


Steam, drawn from the boiler, is the 
compressing power used, the air being 
compressed in a reservoir which hangs 
below the engine cab. There are pipes 
to convey the air to the brakes, and so 
adjusted with valves that they retain the 
compressed air in the ev^nt of the train 
separating. The term * Vacuum Brakes ’ 
is used to distinguish a class of brake* 
operated by atmospheric pressure instead 


























Air-cells 


Airolo 


of compressed air. The action of the 
brakes is under the control of the en¬ 
gineer, and by the use of them a pas¬ 
senger train moving sixty miles an hour 



Brake Valve (section). 



can be stopped within 1,000 feet. By a 
United States law passed in 1893 power 
brakes are required to be used on freight 
as well as on passenger trains. 
Air-rpll<i cavities in the cellular tis- 
sue of the stems and leaves 
of plants which contain air only, the 
juices of the plants being contained in 
separate vessels. They are 
largest and most numerous 
in aquatic plants, as in the 
Vallisneria spiralis and the 
Victoria regia, the gigantic 
leaves of which latter are 
buoyed up on the surface of 
the water by their means.— ^ _ 

The minute cells in the lungs Air-cells in 
of animals are also called Gulf-weed 
air-cells. There are also air- ( Sargassum 
cells in the bodies of birds, vulgare). 
They are connected with the respiratory 
system, and are situated in the cavity of 
the thorax and abdomen, and sometimes 
extend into the bones. They are most 
fully developed in birds of powerful and 
rapid flight, such as the albatross. 

Air-compressor. J ny apparatus used 

r 5 for compressing air. 

Compressed air is used as a source of 
power not only in the air-brake ( q . t\), 
but in motors of different kinds, in oper¬ 
ating rock drills in tunnels, and for other 
purposes. 

Aird (ard), Thomas, a Scottish poet 
and miscellaneous writer, friend 
of Professor Wilson, De Quincey, and 
Carlyle, long editor of a newspaper in 
Dumfries; born 1802, died 1876. He 


wrote the Devil's Dream on Mount Aks- 
beck, The Old Bachelor, etc. 



Sergeant Air-compressor (section through 
cylinder). 


Airrlrip (ar'dre), an industrial bor- 
rLlIUIie ough of Scotland (Falkirk 
district), in Lanarkshire, 11 miles east 
of Glasgow, in the center of a rich iron 
and coal mining district, with a large 
cotton-mill, foundries and machine shops, 
breweries, etc., and collieries and iron 
works in its vicinity. Pop. 22,288. 

A i r.pn 0*1 n p an engine in which air 
XXII engine, heated> and so expanded, 

or compressed air is used as the motive 
power. It may be said to be essentially 
similar in construction to the steam-en¬ 
gine, though the expansibility of air by 
heat is small compared with the expan¬ 
sion that takes place when water is con¬ 
verted into steam. Engines working by 
compressed air have been found very use¬ 
ful in mining, tunneling, etc., since the 
compressed air may be conveyed to its 
destination by means of pipes. In such 
cases the waste air serves for ventilation 
and for reducing the oppressive heat. 

Aire-sur-l’Adour 

town of France, department of Landes, 
the see of a bishop. Pop. (1906) 2283. 

Aire-sur-la-Lys ^tS’towno” 

France, department of Pas de Calais. 10 
miles southeast of St. Omer. Pop. 4258. 
Air-P’lin an instrument for the pro- 
o J jection of bullets by means 
of compressed air. It is generally either 
in the form of an ordinary gun or of a 
stout walking-stick, and about the same 
length. A quantity of air being com¬ 
pressed into the air-chamber by means of 
a condensing syringe, the bullet is put 
in its place in front of this chamber, and 
is propelled by the expansive force of 
the compressed air, which is liberated on 
pressing the trigger. 

Airolo (a-i.-ro'lo), a small town of 
Switzerland, canton Ticino, at 
the southern end of the St. Gothard Tun- 








Air-plants 


Air-pump 


nel, and the first place on this route at 
which Italian is spoken. Pop. 1,600. 
Air-nlants, °, r Epiphytes, are plants 
r J that grow upon other 


plants or trees, apparently without receiv¬ 
ing any nutriment otherwise than from 
the air. The name is restricted to flower¬ 
ing plants (mosses or lichens being ex¬ 
cluded) and is suitably applied to many 
species of orchids. The conditions nec¬ 
essary. to the growth of such plants are 
excessive heat and moisture, and hence 
their chief localities are the damp and 
shady tropical forests of Africa, Asia, and 
America. They are particularly abun¬ 
dant in Java and tropical America. 

Air-uumu an a PP ara t us by means of 
which air or other gas may 
be removed from an enclosed space or for 
compressing air within an enclosed space. 
An ordinary suction-pump for water is 
on the same principle as the air-pump ; 
indeed, before water reaches the top of 
the pipe the air has been pumped out by 
the same machinery which pumps the 
water. An ordinary suction-pump con¬ 
sists essentially of a cylinder or barrel, 
having a valve opening from the pipe 
through which water is to rise and a 
valve opening into the outlet pipe, and a 
piston fitted to work in the cylinder (the 
outlet valve may be in the piston). (See 
Pump.) The arrangement of parts in an 
air-pump is quite similar. The barrel of 
an air-pump fills with the air which ex¬ 
pands from the receiver (that is, the ves¬ 
sel from which the air is being pumped), 
and consequently the quantity of air ex¬ 
pelled at each stroke is less as the ex¬ 
haustion proceeds, the air getting more 
and more rarefied. Fig. 1 represents the 
essential parts of a good air-pump in sec¬ 
tion. E is the receiver, f is a mercurial 



pressure-gauge, which indicates the extent 
of exhaustion; r is a cock by means of 
which air may be readmitted to the re¬ 
ceiver or by means of which the receiver 
may be shut off from the pump-barrel, 
s' is the inlet valve of the barrel; and, in¬ 
asmuch as the tension of the air in the 
receiver after some strokes would not be 


sufficient to lift a valve, this valve is 
opened by means of the rod which passes 
up through the piston. The outlet valve 
s is kept down by a light spiral spring; 
it opens when, on the space diminishing 
in the barrel by the descent of the piston, 
the contained air has a sufficient pressure. 
Fig. 2 shows a similar pump in perspec- 



Fig. 2.—Air-pump. 


tive (a double-barreled pump) ; p is the 
plate on which the receiver is placed, h 
the pressure-gauge, r the readmission 
cock. The pressure-gauge is merely a 
siphon barometer enclosed in a bell-shaped 
vessel of glass communicating with the 
receiver. This barometer consists of a 
bent tube containing mercury, one end 
being closed, the other open. As the air 
is exhausted the smaller is the difference 
between the height of the mercury in the 
two branches of the tube, and a complete 
vacuum would be indicated if the mercury 
stood at the same level in both. Air- 
pumps for compressing air are con¬ 
structed on the same principle but act in 
the reverse way. Many interesting ex¬ 
periments may be made with the air- 
pump. If an animal is placed beneath 
the receiver, and the air exhausted, it dies 
almost immediately; a lighted candle 
under the exhausted receiver immediately 
goes out. Air is thus shown to be neces¬ 
sary to animal life and to combustion. A 
bell, suspended from a silken thread 
beneath the exhausted receiver, on being 
struck cannot be heard. If the bell be in 
one receiver from which the air is not 
exhausted, but which is within an ex¬ 
hausted receiver, it still cannot be heard. 
Air is therefore proved to be necessary 
to the production and to the transmission 
of sound. A shriveled apple placed be- 



























Air-ship 


Aix-la-Chapelle 


neath an exhausted receiver becomes as 
plump as if quite fresh. The air-pump 
was invented by Otto von Guericke, 
burgomaster of Magdeburg, about the 
year 1654. 

Air-ship. See Aeronautics. 

Airv Sir George Biddell, a 

-l «y distinguished English astron¬ 
omer, was born at Alnwick, June 27, 
1801, and educated at Trinity College. 
Cambridge, where he was senior wrangler 
in 1823. At Cambridge he was Lucasian 
professor of mathematics, and subse¬ 
quently Plumian professor of astronomy 
and experimental philosophy, in the lat¬ 
ter capacity having charge of the observ¬ 
atory. In 1835 he was appointed astron¬ 
omer royal, and as such his superintend¬ 
ence of the observatory at Greenwich was 
able and successful. He resigned this 
post w 7 ith a pension in 1881. He wrote 
largely and made numerous valuable in¬ 
vestigations on subjects connected with 
astronomy, physics, and mathematics ; and 
received many honors from academic and 
learned bodies. Among separate works 
published by him may be mentioned Pop¬ 
ular Astronomy, On Sound and Atmos¬ 
pheric Vibrations, A Treatise on Mag¬ 
netism, On the Undulatory Theory of 
Optics, and On Gravitation. Died in 
1892. 

Aisle (Hi from L. ala, a wing), in 
architecture, one of the lateral 
divisions of a church in the direction of its 
length, separated from the central portion 
or nave by piers or pillars. There may 
be one aisle or more on each side of the 
nave. The cathedrals at Antwerp and 
Paris have seven aisles in all. The nave 
is sometimes called the central aisle. See 
Cathedral. 

Aisne ( aa )» a northeastern frontier 
department of France; area, 
2838 sq. miles. It is an undulating, well- 
cultivated, and well-wooded region, chiefly 
watered by the Oise in the north, its 
tributary the Aisne in the center, and 
the Marne in the south. It contains the 
important towns of St. Quentin. Laon 
(the capital), Soissons, and Chateau 
Thierry. Pop. (1906) 534,495. 

Aivali (i-va'le), or Ktdonia, a sea¬ 
port of Asiatic Turkey, on 
the Gulf of Adramyti, 66 miles north by 
west of Smyrna, carrying on an extensive 
commerce in olive-oil, soap, cotton, etc. 
Pop. about 20,000. 

Aix or as ^< a town of Southern 

France, department Bouches-du- 
RhAne, on the river Arc. the seat of an 
archbishop. It is well built, has an old 
cathedral and other interesting buildings, 
high-class educational institutions, library 


(150,000 vols.), museum, etc.; manu¬ 
factures of cotton, woolens, oil, soap, 
hats, flour, etc.; warm springs, now less 
visited than formerly. Aix w r as founded 
in 123 b.c. by the Roman consul Caius 
Sextius Calvinus, and from its mineral 
springs was called Aquce Sextiae (Sextian 
Waters). Between this town and Arles 
Marius gained his great victory over the 
Teutons, 102 b.c. In the middle ages the 
counts of Provence held their court here, 
to which the troubadours used to resort. 
Pop. (1906) 19,433. 

or Atx-les-Bains (aks-la-bap), a 
finely situated village of France, 
department of Savoie, 8 miles north of 
Chamb6ry, on the side of a fertile valley, 
with much-frequented hot springs known 
to the Romans by the name of Aquce 
Gratiance, and with ruins of a Roman 
triumphal arch, and of a temple of Diana. 
Pop. 5,437. 

Aix-la-Chapelle g* ’i 

city of Rhenish Prussia, 38 miles west 
by south of Cologne, pleasantly situated 
in a fine vale watered by the Wurm, for¬ 
merly surrounded by ramparts, now con¬ 
verted into pleasant promenades. It is 
well built, and though an ancient town 
has now quite a modern appearance. The 
most important building is the cathedral, 
the oldest portion of which, often called 
the nave, was erected in the time of 
Charles the Great (Charlemagne) as the 
palace chapel about 796. It is in the 
Byzantine style, and consists of an oc¬ 
tagon, surrounded by a sixteen-sided gal¬ 
lery and surmounted by a cupola, in the 
middle being the tomb of Charlemagne. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, with the adjoining Burt- 
scheid, w r hicli may be considered a suburb, 
is a place of great commerce and manu¬ 
facturing industry, the chief productions 
being w T oolen yarns and cloths, needles, 
machinery, cards (for the woolen manu¬ 
facture), railway and other carriages, 
cigars, chemicals, silk goods, hosiery, 
glass, soap, etc. A considerable portion 
of its importance and prosperity arises 
from the influx of visitors to its springs 
and baths, there being a number of warm 
sulphur springs here, and several chalyb¬ 
eate springs, with ample accommodation 
for strangers. Aix-la-Chapelle was 
known to the Romans as Aquisgranum. 
It was the favorite residence of Charles 
the Great, who made it the capital of all 
his dominions north of the Alps, and who 
died here in 814. During the middle 
ages it was a free imperial city and very 
flourishing. Thirty-seven German em¬ 
perors and eleven empresses have been 
crowned in it, and the imperial insignia 
were preserved here till 1795, when they 


Aix, 



Ajaccio 


Akbar 


were carried to Vienna. Pop. 156,044. 
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, a congress 
held in 1818, by which the army of the 
allies in France was withdrawn after 
France had paid the contribution im¬ 
posed at the peace of 1815, and indepen¬ 
dence restored to France.—A treaty of 
peace concluded at this city, May 2, 
1668, as a result of the Triple Alliance, 
put an end to the war carried on against 
Spain by Louis XIV in 1667.—The 
second peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, October 
18, 1748, terminated the Austrian war of 
succession. 

Aiaccio (&-y& ch '6), the capital of 
J Corsica, on the southwest 

coast of the island, on a tongue of land 
projecting into the Gulf of Ajaccio, the 
birthplace of Napoleon and the seat of a 
bishop, with coral and sardine fisheries, 
and a considerable trade. Pop. 19,021. 
Al’anta (a-jan'ta), a village and 
J ravine of India, in the Ni¬ 

zam’s dominions, 24 miles north of As- 
saye. The ravine, 4 miles n. w. of the vil¬ 
lage, is celebrated for its cave temples, 



Pillar at Ajanta. 

twenty-nine in number, excavated out of 
a wall of almost perpendicular rock about 
250 feet high. They are all richly orna¬ 
mented with sculpture, and covered with 
highly-finished paintings. 

(a'jaks) (Gr. Aias), the name 
of two Grecian chiefs who 
fought against Troy, the one being son 
of Oileus, the other son of Telamon. 
The latter was from Salamis, and sailed 
with twelve ships to Troy, where he is 
represented by Homer as the boldest and 
6—1 


Ajax 


handsomest of the Greeks, after Achilles. 
On the death of Achilles, when his arms, 
which Ajax claimed, were awarded to 
Ulysses, he became insane and killed him¬ 
self. This is the subject of Sophocles’s 
tragedy Ajax. 

Aimed ^jmir, or Ajmer, (aj-mer'), 
J > a British commissionership 

in India, Rajput&na, divided into the 
two districts of Ajmeer and Mairwara; 
area, 2711 sq. miles. The soil is partly 
fertile, but there occur large barren 
sandy plains. Pop. 476.330.— Ajmeer, 
the capital, an ancient city, a favorite 
residence of the Mogul emperors, is 220 
miles s. w. of Delhi, at the foot of Tara- 
garh Hill (2853 feet), on which is a 
fort. It is surrounded by a wall, and 
possesses a government college, a mosque 
that forms one of the finest specimens of 
early Mohammedan architecture extant, 
and an old palace of Akbar, now the 
treasury; trade in cotton, sugar, salt, etc. 
Pop. 73,839. 

A inwall (a-jo-wan') (Ptychotis Ajo- 
ilJOWcill wan )' an umbelliferous plant 

cultivated in India, Persia, and Egypt, 
the seeds of which are used in. cookery 
and in medicine, having carminative pr6p- 
erties. 

Ajllga, a genus of plants. See Bugle. 

Aillt'IS’P (aj'o-taj), a short tube of 
xxj atagc a Capering shape fitting into 

the side of a reservoir to regulate the dis¬ 
charge of the water. Also, the nozzle of 
a tube for regulating the discharge of 
water to form a jet d’eau. 

AVqViqIi (a'ka-bh), Gulf of, an arm 
iiKaDan of the Red gea . on the east 

side of the Peninsula of Sinai, which 
separates it from the Gulf of Suez ; nearly 
100 miles long. The village of Akabah, 
at the northern extremity of the gulf, is 
supposed to be the Ezion-geber of the 
Old Testament. 

AVnrrnrl (ak'a-roid) Resin, a resin 

XxXVdl uiu. obtained from some of the 

grass-trees of Australia, used in varnishes. 

Ak'bar ( that is > <very s reat ’)> a 

Mogul emperor, the greatest 
Asiatic prince of modern times. He was 
born at Amerkote, in Sind, in 1542, suc¬ 
ceeded his father, Humayun, at the age 
of thirteen, and , governed first under the 
guardianship of his minister, Beyram, 
but took the chief power into his own 
hands in 1560. He fought with distin¬ 
guished valor against his foreign foes 
and rebellious subjects, conquering all his 
enemies, and extending the limits of the 
emnire further than they had ever been 
before, although on his accession they em¬ 
braced only a small part of the former 
Mogul empire. His government was 










Akee 


Akhalzik 


remarkable for its mildness and tolerance 
towards all sects; he was indefatigable 
in his attention to the internal adminis¬ 
tration of his empire, and instituted in¬ 
quiries into the population, character, 
and productions of each province. The 
result of his statistical labors, as well 
as a history of his reign, were collected 
by his minister, Abul Fazl, in a work 
called Akhar-Nameh (Book of Ak- 
bar), the third part of which, entitled 
Ayini-Akhari (Institutes of Akbar), 
was published in an English translation 
at Calcutta (1783-86, three vols.), and 
reprinted in London. He died in 1605. 
His mausoleum at Secundra, near Agra, 
is a fine example of Mohammedan archi¬ 
tecture. 


Akenside 


(a'ken-sld), Mark, a poet 
and physician, born in 1721, 


at Newcastle-upon-Tyne ; died in London 
in 1770. He was the son of a butcher, 
and was sent to the University of Edin¬ 
burgh to qualify himself for the Pres¬ 
byterian ministery, but chose the study of 
medicine instead. After three years’ resi¬ 
dence at Edinburgh he went to Leyden, 
and in 1744 became Doctor of Physic. 
In the same year he published the 
Pleasures of Imagination, which he is 
said to have written in Edinburgh. Hav¬ 
ing settled in London in 1748, he became 
a fellow of the Royal Society and was 
admitted into the College of Physicians. 
In 1759 he was appointed first assistant 
and afterwards head physician to St. 



Mausoleum of the Emperor Akbar at Secundra. 


Akee' sapida ), a tree of the 

nat. order Sapindaceae, much es¬ 
teemed for its fruit. The leaves are some¬ 
what similar to those of the ash; the 
flowers are small and white, and produce 
in branched spikes. The fruit is lobed 
and ribbed, of a dull, orange color, and 
contains several large black seeds, em¬ 
bedded in a succulent and slightly bitter 
arillus of a pale-straw color, which is 
eaten when cooked. The akee is a native 
of Guinea, from whence it was carried 
to the West Indies by Captain Bligh in 
1793. 

A Kenrpis, Thomas. See Thomas d 
r J Kempis. 

Aken (&'ken), a Prussian town, 
province of Saxony, on the left 
bank of the Elbe, with manufactures of 
tobacco, cloth, beet-root sugar, leather, 
etc. Pop. 7365. 


Thomas’s hospital. In his later years 

he wrote little poetry, but published 

several medical essays and observations. 

The place of Akenside as a poet is not 

very high, though his somewhat cumbrous 

and cloudy Pleasures of Imagination was 

once considered one of the most pleasing 

didactic poems in our language. 

AVpvmann (a-ker-man'), a seaport of 
iiKei iiiciiiii gouthern Russia< in Bes _ 

sarabia, near the mouth of the Dniester, 
with a good port. The vicinity produces 
quantities of salt and also fine grapes, 
from which excellent wine is made. A 
treaty was signed here, Oct. 6, 1826, be¬ 
tween Russia and the Porte, by which 
Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia were re¬ 
leased from all but nominal dependence 
on Turkey. Pop. 28,303. 

AVhalf^ilr (&-/ial-tsik'), a town of 
ilAIldlXZlK Russia in Agia> iQ the 

































■ •■, f ' 


- ' . 




The smallest of this group is just three feet high, and the largest, though full grown, only four and a half feet tall 






















Ak-Hissar 


Alabama 


Trans-Caucasian government of Tiflis, 
97 miles west of Tiflis, with a citadel. 
It was taken by the Russians in 1828. 
Pop. 15,387. 

A"U-_TTi<i<iar (ak-his-s a r') (‘ White 

ak nissar Castle » )f a town in 

Asiatic Turkey, 58 miles n. e. of Smyrna, 
occupying the site of the ancient 
Thyatira, relics of which city are here 
abundant. Here the Emperor Valens 
defeated the usurper Procopius in 366, 
and Murad defeated the Prince of Aidin 
in 1425. Pop. about 20,000. 
Akhtyrka a cathedral 

" town of southern Russia, 

gov. Kharkov, with a good trade and some 
manufactures. Pop. 25,965. 

Akjermann Sam * as 


Ak'kaS a . dwarfish race Central Af- 
> rica, dwelling in scattered 
settlements to the northwest of Lake 
Albert, about lat. 

3° n.. Ion. 29° e. 

Their height aver¬ 
ages about feet; 
they are of a 
brownish or coffee 
color; head large, 
jaws proj e c t i n g 
(or prognathous), 
ears large, hands 
small. They are 
timid and suspic¬ 
ious, and live al¬ 
most entirely by 
the chase, being Akka—African Tribe, 
exceedingly s k i 1- 

ful with the bow and arrow. They 
form a branch of the pygmy race 
found in many parts of Africa. See 

(ak-ma-lyensk'), a Rus¬ 
sian province in Central 
Asia, largely consisting of steppes and 
wastes; the rivers are the Ishim and 
Sari-Su ; and it contains the larger part 
of Lake Balkash. Area of 230,000 sq. m. 
Pop. 686,863.-— Akmolinsk, the capital, 
is a place of some importance for its 
caravan trade. Pop. 9,557. 

Akol& ( a_ ko'la), a town of India, in 
Berar, the residence of the com¬ 
missioner of Berar, on the river Morna, 
150 miles w. by s. of Nagpur; with walls 
and a fort, and some trade in cotton. 
Pop. about 29,289. 

Ak'ron a city * n 100 miles N. e. 

’ of Columbus, on an elevated 
site. Being furnished with ample water¬ 
power by the Little Cuyahoga, it possesses 
large flour-mills, woolen factories, manu¬ 
factures of iron goods, etc. In the 
vicinity extensive beds of mineral paint 
are worked. Pop. 69,067. 


Pygmy. 

Akmolinsk 



A L-cii (ak-su') (‘ white water’), a town 
of Eastern or Chinese Turkestan, 
300 miles from Kashgar, in the valley of 
the Aksu. It is an important center of 
trade between Russia, China, and Tar¬ 
tary, and has manufactures of cotton 
cloth, leather, and metal goods. Formerly 
the residence of the kings of Kashgar and 
Yarkand. Pop. 15,000-20,000. 

AkvaV (ak-yab'), a seaport of Lower 
« Burmah, capital of the prov¬ 


ince of Arracan, at the mouth of the 
river Kuladan or Akyab, of recent up¬ 
growth, well built, possessing a good 
harbor, and carrying on an important 
trade, its chief exports being rice and 
petroleum. Pop. 31,687. 

AlaLama (al-a-ba'ma), one of the 
Aiaoama United $ tateSj bounded by 

Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, the Gulf of 
Mexico, and Mississippi; area, 51,998 
square miles. The southern part, border¬ 
ing on the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, is 
low and level, and wooded largely with 
pine, hence known as the ‘ pine-woods re¬ 
gion,’ the middle is hilly, with some 
tracts of level sand or prairies ; the north 
is broken and mountainous. The State is 
intersected by the rivers Alabama, Tom- 
bigbee, Mobile, Coosa, Tallapoosa, Ten¬ 
nessee, etc., some of them navigable for 
several hundred miles. The soil is va¬ 
rious, being in some places, particularly in 
the south, sandy and barren, but in most 
parts is fertile, especially in the river val¬ 
leys and in the center, where there is a 
very fertile tract known as the ‘ cotton 
belt.’ The climate in general is warm, 
and in the low-lying lands skirting the 
rivers is rather unhealthy. In the more 
elevated parts it is healthy and agreeable, 
the winters being mild and the summers 
tempered by breezes from the Gulf of 
Mexico. The staple production is cotton, 
especially in the middle and south, where 
rice and sugar are also grown; in the 
north the cereals (above all, maize) are 
the principal crops. Alabama possesses 
extensive beds of iron ore and coal, with 
marble, granite, and other minerals; and 
coal and iron mining, and the smelting 
and working of iron, receive considerable 
attention. The manufacture of cotton 
goods is extensively, carried on. In the 
production of pig-iron, Alabama now 
ranks as third State in the Union. The 
State sends eight representatives to Con¬ 
gress. Its principal towns are Mont¬ 
gomery, the seat of government, Birming¬ 
ham, the chief seat of iron manufacture, 
and Mobile, the chief port. There is a 
State university of Tuscaloosa, a State 
agricultural college at Athens, and other 
educational institutions including the 
Tuskegee Normal Institute for the in- 



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Kcale of Miles 




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C.S.HAMMOND A CO., N.Y. 


Longitude 87° West 


from 80° Greenwich D 


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Alabama 


Alameda 


dustrial education of the colored race. 
Alabama became a State in 1819. Popu¬ 
lation 2,138,093. 

Alahamfl a river of the United States, 
AlclUdiua, in the gtate of Alabama, 

formed by the junction of the Coosa and 
the Tallapoosa. After a course of 312 
miles it joins the Tombigbee and assumes 
the name of the Mobile. 

Ala Via m a The, a ship built at Birken- 
xxiauaiua, head> Eng i and? t0 act as a 

privateer in the service of the Confederate 
States of North America during the Civil 
war. She was a wooden screw steamer 
with two engines of 350 horse-power each, 
1040 tons burden, and carried eight 32- 
pounders. Before she was launched her 
destination was made known to the 
British government, but delay in ordering 
her detention permitted her escape, the 
order reaching Liverpool one day late. 
She received her armament and stores at 
the Azores, and entered on a destructive 
career, capturing and burning merchant 
vessels, till she was sunk in a fight with 
the Federal war steamer Kearsarge, off 
Cherbourg, 19th June, 1864. 

Alabama Claims, The. ea ^ y 

of 1862 the United States government de¬ 
clared that they held themselves entitled 
at a suitable period to demand full com¬ 
pensation from Britain for the damages 
inflicted on American property by the 
Alabama and several other cruisers that 
had been built, supplied, or recruited in 
British ports or w r aters. After a long 
series of negotiations it was agreed to 
submit the final settlement of the ques¬ 
tion to a court of arbitration, consisting 
of representatives of Britain and the 
United States, and of three other mem¬ 
bers, appointed by the King of Italy, the 
President of Switzerland, and the Em¬ 
peror of Brazil. This court met at 
Geneva, 17th December, 1871, and a claim 
for indirect damages to American com¬ 
merce having been abandoned by the 
United States government, the decree was 
given in September, 1872, that Britain 
was liable to the United States in dam¬ 
ages to the amount of $15,500,000. 

AlaBastAV (a-la-bas'ter), a name ap- 
AiaDastei plied to a granular var i e ty 

of gypsum or hydrated sulphate of lime. 
It was much used by the ancients for the 
manufacture of ointment and perfume 
boxes, vases, and the like. It has a fine 
granular texture, is usually of a pure 
white color, and is so soft that it can be 
scratched with the nail. It is found in 
many parts of Europe; in great abun¬ 
dance and of peculiarly excellent quality 
in Tuscany. From the finer and more com¬ 
pact kinds vases, clock-stands, statuettes, 


and other ornamental articles are made, 
and from inferior kinds the cement known 
as plaster of Paris. A variety of carbon¬ 
ate of lime, closely resembling alabaster 
in appearance, is used for similar pur¬ 
poses under the name of Oriental ala¬ 
baster. This is usually stalagmitic or 
stalactitic in origin and is often of a 
yellowish color. It may be distinguished 
from true alabaster by being too hard to 
be scratched with the nail. 

Alop'+acra ( Alactdga jaculus), a ro- 
5:3 dent mammal, closely allied 
to the jerboa, but somewhat larger in size, 
with a still longer tail. Its range ex¬ 
tends from the Crimea and the steppes 
of the Don across Central Asia to the 
Chinese frontier. 

Alocrnasi (a-la-go'as), a maritime prov- 

magoas ince of Brazil . area , 22,600 
sq. miles; pop. about 600,000.— Alagoas, 
the former capital of the province, is 
situated on the north of Lake Mauguaba, 
about 20 miles distant from Maceio, to 
which the seat of government was trans¬ 
ferred in 1839. Pop. about 5,000. 

A laic (a-la), a town of Southern 
France, department of Gard, 25 
miles N. w. of Nimes, with coal, iron, and 
lead mines, which are actively worked, 
and chalybeate springs, which have many 
visitors during the autumn months. Pop. 
(1906) 18,987. 

Ala ill Ala (a-la-7iu-u'la), a city of Costa 
nidj ucid R j ca> ca pital of a province of 

the same name, about 12 miles from San 
Josg. It is in the center of an important 
coffee district. Pop. 3,828. 

Ala-TTnl a l a k e iu Russian Central 
xxict ivui, Asia, near the border of 

Mongolia, in lat. 46° N. Ion. 81° 40' e. ; 
area 660 sq. m. 

Alamanni. See Alemanni. 

A1 a m a mi i (ada-man'i), Luigi, an 

iiiamanni Italian poet< of noble 

family, born at Florence in 1495. Sus¬ 
pected of conspiring against the life of 
Cardinal Giulio, Medici, who then gov¬ 
erned Florence in the name of Pope Leo 
X, he fled to Venice, and when the 
cardinal ascended the papal chair under 
the name of Clement VII he took refuge 
in France, where he henceforth lived, be¬ 
ing employed by Francis I and Henry 
II in several important negotiations. He 
died in 1556. 

A la in a/ 1 a (a-la-me'da), Alameda 
iiiameaa countVf Cal., a favorite 

suburban residence for San Francisco 
business men. It is situated on the Bay 
of San Francisco about 8 miles from the 
city, with which it is connected by a 
steam ferry. It is celebrated for its 
orchards and gardens. Pop. 23,383. 




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THE SINKING OF THE “ALABAMA,” THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL CONFEDERATE CRUISERS 

The battle between the Kearsage and the Alabama took place off the coast of France, June, 1864. “The famous cruiser was going down, and the boats of the 
Kearsarge were hurriedly sent to help the drowning men. The stern settled, the bow rose high in the air, the immense ship plunged out of sight, and the career of 

the Alabama was ended forever.” 
























































































•' - 






















































































CAPTURE AND SACK OF ROME BY ALARIC, KING OF THE GOTHS, 410 A. D. 

In the pillage of Rome a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight. 









Alamo 


Ala-Shehr 


Alamo (al'a-mo), a fort in Bexar 
county, Texas, which is cele¬ 
brated for the resistance its occupants 
(140 Texans) made to a Mexican force 
of 4000 from 23d February to 6th March, 
1836. At the latter date only six Texans 
remained alive, and on their surrendering 
they were slaughtered by the Mexicans. 
Al'amns a town of Mexico, State of 
9 Sonora, well built, the capital 
of a mining district. Pop. about 6000. 
Aland ( 0 ^ an< 5) Islands, a numerous 
group of islands and islets 
about eighty of which are inhabited, be¬ 
longing to Russia, situated in the Baltic 
Sea, near the mouth of the Gulf of Fin¬ 
land; area, 468 square miles. The prin¬ 
cipal island, Aland, distant about 30 miles 
from the Swedish coast, is 18 miles long 
and about 14 broad. It has a harbor 
capable of containing the whole Russian 
fleet. The fortress of Bombarsund, here 
situated, was destroyed by an Anglo- 
French force in August, 1854. The inhab¬ 
itants, who are of Swedish extraction, 
employ themselves mainly in fishing. The 
islands were ceded by Sweden to Russia 
in 1809. Pop. about 24,000. 

Ala'ni or ^ LANS ’ one °f the warlike 
1 ** 9 tribes which migrated from 

Asia westward at the time of the decline 
of the Roman empire. They are first met 
with in the region of the Caucasus, where 
Pompey fought with them. From this 
center they spread over the south of 
modern Russia to the confines of the 
Roman empire. About the middle of the 
fifth century they joined the Vandals, 
among whom they become lost to history. 

Alarcon y Mendoza <*£$$§£,• 

Don Juan Ruiz de, one of the most dis¬ 
tinguished dramatic poets of Spain, born 
in Mexico about the beginning of Ihe 
seventeenth century. He went to Europe 
about 1622, and in 1628 he published a 
volume containing eight comedies, and in 
1634 another containing twelve. One of 
them, called La Verdad Sospechosa (The 
Truth Suspected), furnished Corneille 
with the groundwork and greater part of 
the substance of his Menteur. His 
Tejador de Segovia (Weaver of Segovia) 
and Las Paredes Oyen (Walls have Ears) 
are still performed on the Spanish stage. 
He died in 1639. 

Ala rip T (al'ar-ik), King of the Visi- 
aiaAU/ A goths, was born about the 
middle of the fourth century, and is 
first mentioned in history in A. D. 394, 
when Theodosius the Great gave him the 
command of his Gothic auxiliaries. The 
dissensions between Arcadius and Ilo- 
norius, the sons of Theodosius, inspired 
Alaric with the intention of attacking the 


Roman empire. In 396 he ravaged 
Greece, from which he was driven by the 
Roman general Stilicho, but made a 
masterly retreat to Illyria, of which 
Arcadius, frightened at his successes, ap¬ 
pointed him governor. In 400 he invaded 
Italy, but was defeated by Stilicho at 
Pollentia (403), and induced to transfer 
his services from Arcadius to Honorius on 
condition of receiving 4000 lbs. of gold. 
Honorius having failed to fulfil this con¬ 
dition, Alaric made a second invasion of 
Italy, during which he besieged Rome 
thrice. The first time (408) the city was 
saved by paying a heavy ransom; the 
second (409) it capitulated, and Honorius 
was deposed, but shortly afterwards 
restored. His sanction of a treacherous 
attack on the forces of Alaric brought 
about the third siege, and the city was 
taken 24th August, 410, and sacked for 
six days, Alaric, however, doing every¬ 
thing in his power to restrain the violence 
of his followers. He quitted Rome with 
the intention of reducing Sicily and 
Africa, but died at Cosenza in 410. . 
AI'qvip TT King of the Visigoths 

ill anc j. 1, from 484 to 507 A T) ' At 

the beginning of his reign the dominions 
of the Visigoths were at their greatest 
extent, embracing three-fourths of the 
modern Spain and all Western Gaul to 
the south of the Loire. His unwarlike 
character induced Clovis, King of the 
Franks, to invade the kingdom of the 
Visigoths. In a battle near Poictiers 
(507) Alaric was slain and his. army 
completely defeated. The Breviarium 
Alaricianum, a code of laws derived ex¬ 
clusively from Roman sources, was com¬ 
piled bv a body of Roman jurists at the 
command of this King Alaric. 

Alarm ( a -l arm ')> ia military language 
xxiaiiii a signal, given by beat of drum, 
bugle-call, or firing of a gun, to apprise 
a camp or garrison of a surprise intended 
or actually made by the enemy. A place, 
called the alarm-post, is generally ap¬ 
pointed at which the troops are to as¬ 
semble when an alarm is given.— Alarm 
is also the name given to several con¬ 
trivances in which electricity is made use 
of, as a fire-alarm, by which intelligence 
is at once conveyed to the proper quarter 
when a fire breaks out; a burglar-alarm, 
an arrangement of wires and a battery 
in a house intended to set a bell or bells 
ringing should a burglar attempt to gain 
entrance. An alarm-clock, one which can 
be set so as to ring loudly at a certain 
hour to wake from sleep or excite atten¬ 
tion. 

Ala 9,TipTir (d-la-shar'; ancient 

Aid oiiciii p hUade i phia ) f a town i n 

Turkey in Asia, 76 miles east of Smyrna, 



Alaska 


Alban 


famous as the seat of one of the first 
Christian churches, and still having a 
vast number of interesting remains of 
antiquity, consisting of fragments of beau¬ 
tiful columns, sarcophagi, fountains, etc. 
It is a place of some importance, carrying 
on a thriving trade by caravans, chiefly 
with Smyrna. Pop. about 20,000. 

Ala<iVa (a-las'ka), a territory belong- 
AiaSKa ing tQ the United g tates< com . 

prising all that portion of the northwest 
of North America which lies west of the 
141st meridian of west longitude, together 
with an irregular strip of coast land (and 
the adjacent islands), extending south to 
lat. 54° 40' N., and lying between the 
British territories and the Pacific; total 
area, about 577,390 sq. m. The territory 
is watered by several rivers, the principal 
of which is the Yukon, a river of about 
2000 miles in total length; 1500-1600 
miles within the territory. The principal 
mountains (among which are a number 
of active volcanic peaks) are Mounts Mc¬ 
Kinley (20,464 ft.), Wrangell, and Fair- 
weather. The climate of the interior is 
very severe in winter; in summer the 
heat is intense; on the Pacific coast it is 
mild but moist. Alaska produces an 
abundance of excellent timber, and has 
proved capable of growing oats, rye, 
barley and some other garden and 
field products. Numbers of fur-bearing 
animals abound, such as the fur-seal, sea- 
otter, heaver, fox, mink, marten, etc.; and 
the fur trade has long been valuable. The 
coasts and rivers swarm with fish, and 
salmon, herring, halibut, and cod are 
caught and exported, the salmon fish¬ 
eries being of great importance. Gold ex¬ 
ists in many localities, especially near 
Nome and the Seward Peninsula, the an¬ 
nual product reaching about $20,000,000. 
Very rich deposits of coal have been found, 
of excellent quality, and copper is abun¬ 
dant. The aboriginal inhabitants consist 
of Eskimos and Indians. Alaska for¬ 
merly belonged to Russia, but was made 
over to the United States in 1867 for a 
sum of $7,200,000. The seat of govern¬ 
ment is Juneau, on Gastineau Channel. 
The gold-fields have attracted many im¬ 
migrants. Pop. 64,356. A long-pending 
Alaskan boundary dispute between Can¬ 
ada and the United States was settled in 
favor of the latter in 1903. 

Alatan (a-la-tou'), the name of three 
considerable mountain ranges 
of Central Asia, on the Russian and 
Chinese frontiers. 

Alatvr (a-ld-tir'), a town in Russia, 
* government Simbirsk, at the 
confluence of the Alatyr with the 
Sura, with a considerable trade. Pop. 
11 , 086 . 


Aland a (a-la'da), a genus of insessorial 
xiictuud birdg< which i uc i u des the larks. 

See Lark. 

Alova (a'la-va), a hilly province in the 
a north of Spain, one of the three 
Basque provinces; area, 1207 sq. m. ; 
covered by branches of the Pyrenees, the 
mountains being clothed with oak, chest¬ 
nut and other timber, and the valleys 
yielding grain, vegetables, and abundance 
of fruits. There are iron and copper 
mines, and inexhaustible salt springs. 
Capital, Vittoria. Pop. 96,385. 

AIK (from L. alius , 
white), a cleri¬ 
cal vestment worn by 
priests while officiat¬ 
ing in the more sol¬ 
emn functions of di¬ 
vine service. It is a 
long robe of white 
linen reaching to the 
feet, bound round the 
waist by a cincture, 
and fitting more close¬ 
ly to the body than 
the surplice. 

Al'ba the name of —§ 
ua ’ several towns ^ 
in ancient Italy, the 
most celebrated of 
which was Alba 
Longa, a city of Lat- 
ium ; according to tra¬ 
dition, built by As- 
canius, the son of .Eneas, 300 years 
before the foundation of Rome; at one 
time the most powerful city of Latium. 
It ultimately fell under the dominion of 
Rome, when the town was destroyed, it is 
said. In later times its site became 
covered with villas of wealthy Romans. 
Alba (anciently Alba Pompeia), a 
town of Northern Italy, about 
30 miles s. e. of Turin, is the see of a 
bishop, has a cathedral, bishop’s palace, 
church with fresco paintings by Perugino, 
etc. Pop. 13,900. 

Alba, Duke of. See Alva. 

AlhflPPfp (al-ba-tha'ta), a town in 
Aiuacete Southern gpain> capital of 

the province of the same name, 106 miles 
n. N. w. of Cartagena, with a considerable 
trade, both direct and transit, and manu¬ 
factures of knives, daggers, etc. Pop. 
21,512.—The province has an area of 
5737 sq. miles, and a pop. of 237,877. 

Alba Longa. See Alla. 

Alban ( al ' ban ) Saint, the traditionary 
proto-martyr of Britain, who 
flourished in the third century, was, it 
is said, converted from paganism by a 
confessor whom he had saved from‘his 



Alb. 










OK 


s 


































































Albani 


Albany 


persecutors, and refusing to sacrifice to 
the gods, was executed outside of the city 
of Verulamium (St. Albans) in 285 or 
305. 

Albani (al-ba'ne), Francesco, a fa- 
xxiuaiij. mous Italian painter, born at 

Bologna in 1578, died in 1660. He had 
as teachers the Flemish painter Calvaert 
and the Caracci. Among the best known 
of his compositions are the Sleeping 
Venus, Diana in the Bath , Danae Reclin¬ 
ing, Galatea on the Sea, Europa on the 
Bull. 

Alhnnin (al-ba'ne-a), an extensive re- 
UcU a gion in the northwest of Tur¬ 
key in Europe, stretching along the coast 
of the Adriatic for about 290 miles, and 
having a breadth varying from about 90 
to about 50 miles. The boundary on the 
east is formed by a range of mountains, 
and the country is composed of at least 
nine ridges of hills, of which six are in 
Lower or Southern Albania (ancient 
Epirus) and the remainder in Central 
and Upper or Northern Albania. There 
are no large rivers, and in summer many 
of the streams are completely dry. The 
Drin or Drino is the largest. The most 
beautiful lake is that of Ochrida, 20 miles 
long, 8 broad at the widest part. The 
Lake of Scutari, in Upper Albania, is 
the largest. Among trees Albania has 
many species of oak, the poplar, hazel, 
plane, chestnut, cypress, and laurel. The 
vine flourishes, together with the orange, 
almond, fig, mulberry, and citron ; maize, 
wheat, and barley are cultivated. Its 
fauna comprise bears, wolves, and 
chamois; sheep, 'goats, horses, asses, and 
mules are plentiful. The chief exports are 
live stock, wool, hides, timber, oil, salt- 
fish, cheese, and tobacco. The chief ports 
are Prevesa, Avlona, and Durazzo. The 
population, about 1,400,000, consists 
chiefly of Albanians or Arnauts, or, as 
they call themselves, Skipetars (moun¬ 
taineers), with a certain number of 
Greeks and Turks. The Albanians are 
distinct in race and language from the 
surrounding peoples. They are only half 
civilized, are divided into a number of 
clans, and bloody feuds are still common 
among them. They belong partly to the 
Greek, partly to the Roman Catholic 
Church, but the great majority are 
Mohammedans. Though their country be¬ 
came a province of the Turkish dominions 
in the fifteenth century, they still main¬ 
tain a certain degree of independence 
which the Porte has never found it pos¬ 
sible to overcome. 

A1 Larin (ai-b&'no), a city and lake in 
xxiucuiu Italy, the former about 15 

miles southeast of Rome, and on the 
west border of the lake, amid beautiful 


scenery, with remarkable remains of an¬ 
cient structures. Pop. 8461.—The lake, 
situated immediately beneath the Alban 
Hill, is of an oval form, 6 miles in circum¬ 
ference, surrounded by steep banks of 
volcanic tufa 300 or 400 feet high, and 
discharges its superfluous waters by an 
artificial tunnel at least 2000 years old. 

Albans, ST. See St. Albans. 

(al'ba-ne), the original Celtic 

y name probably at first applied 
to the whole of Britain, but latterly 
restricted to the Highlands of Scotland. 
It gave the title of duke formerly to a 
prince of the blood-royal of Scotland. 
The first duke was Robert Stuart (1339- 
1419), second son of Robert II and 
brother of Robert III. He was virtual 
ruler of the kingdom during the latter 
years of his brother’s reign, and acted as 
regent for his nephew, James I (kept a 
prisoner in England) till his own death. 
Another nephew, David, Duke of Rothe¬ 
say. is said to have been starved to death 
in Falkland Castle through his influence. 
His son Murdoch, second duke, succeeded 
him as regent, and was put to death Jby 
James for maladministration. The third 
duke was Alexander, second son of James 
II and brother of James III. A large 
part of his life was passed in France. 
His son John was the fourth who bore 
the title. He was regent of Scotland 
during the minority of James V (1515- 
1523). Recently the title has belonged 
to members of the British royal family. 
Al'Lanxr a city, capital of New York 
ni U<X1L J f State, on the west bank of 
the Hudson, 145 miles north of New York 
city, from and to which steamboats run 
daily. The Erie Canal and the numerous 
railway lines centering here from all direc¬ 
tions greatly contribute to the growth 
and prosperity of the city, which carries 
on an extensive trade. It is a great mart 
for timber, and has foundries, brewer¬ 
ies, tanneries, etc. Albany was settled by 
the Dutch in 1610-14, and the older 
houses are in the Dutch style, with the 
gable-ends to the streets. There is a 
university, an observatory, and a state 
library with 90,000 volumes. The prin¬ 
cipal public edifices are the capitol or 
state-house, the state-hall for the public 
offices, a state arsenal, and numerous 
religious edifices. Pop. 100,253. 

AlLanv a city, capital of Dougherty 
xiivauy , q 0 ^ Georgia, on Flint River, 
107 miles s. s. w. of Macon. It is an 
important railroad terminal, ships cot¬ 
ton by water, being at the head of navi¬ 
gation, and has several manufacturing 
industries. It has become a health re¬ 
sort. Pop. 8,190. 



Albany 


Albert I 


Al'banv Louisa Maria Caroline, 
xii vai , Countess of, a princess of 

the Stolberg-Gedern family, was born in 
1753, and married, in 1772, the Pretender, 
Charles Edward Stuart, after which event 
she bore the above title. To escape from 
the ill-treatment of her husband she re¬ 
tired, in 1780, to the house of her brother- 
in-law at Rome, where she met the poet 
Alfieri, whose mistress she became. (See 
Al fieri.) She died at Florence in 1824. 

Albatross (al'ba-tros),large marine 
swimming bird of several 
species, of which the wandering albatross 
(Diomedea exulans) is the best known. 
The bill is straight and strong, the upper 
mandible hooked at the point and the 
lower one truncated; there are three 
webbed toes on each foot. The upper 
part of the body is of a grayish brown, 
and the belly white. It is the largest 
sea-bird known, some measuring 17% feet 
from tip to tip of their expanded wings. 
They abound at the Cape of Good Hope 
and in other parts of the southern seas, 
and in Behring Straits, and have been 


Albemarle, g^ e 0F - See Monk - 

AVhpndnrf (al'ben-dorf) a village in 
211ueilUUIl Prussia province of Si¬ 
lesia, 50 miles s. w. of Breslau, remark¬ 
able for the pilgrimages made to its 
church (which has a miracle-working 
statue of the Virgin), chapels, statues, 
etc. Pop. 1,513. 

Alhprnni Cardinal Giulio (ju'li-o &1- 
xiiuciuni, ba _ r5 , n§)> born in 1664 in 

north Italy, and educated for the church. 
The Duke of Parma sent him as his 
minister to Madrid, where he gained the 
affection of Philip V. He rose by cunning 
and intrigue to the station of prime 
minister, became a cardinal, was all 
powerful in Spain after the year 1715, 
and endeavored to restore it to its 
ancient splendor. In pursuance of this 
object he invaded Sardinia and Sicily, and 
indeed entertained the idea of stirring up 
a general war in Europe. The alliance of 
France and England, however, rendered 
his schemes abortive, and led to his 
dismissal and exile in 1720. He wan- 



Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans). 


known to accompany ships for whole days 
without ever resting on the waves. From 
this habit the bird is regarded with feel¬ 
ings of attachment and superstitious awe 
by sailors, it being reckoned unlucky to 
kill one. Coleridge has availed himself of 
this feeling in his Ancient Mariner. The 
albatross is met with at great distances 
from the land, settling down on the waves 
at night to sleep. It is exceedingly vora¬ 
cious, whenever food is abundant gorging 
to such a degree as to be unable to fly 
or swim. It feeds on fish, carrion, fish- 
spawn, oceanic mollusca, and other small 
marine animals. Its voice is a harsh, 
disagreeable cry. Its nest is a heap of 
earth; its eggs are larger than those of a 
goose. 

AlbaV (al'bi'), a province, town, bay, 
J and volcano in the southeast 
( part of the island of Luzon, one of the 
Philippines. The province is mountain¬ 
ous but fertile; the town regularly built, 
with a population of 14,049, the bay 
capacious, secure, and almost landlocked; 
and the volcano, which is always in 
activity, forms a conspicuous landmark. 


dered about a long time under false 
names, but on the accession of Pope Inno¬ 
cent XIII he was restored to all the 
rights and honors of a cardinal. He died 
at Rome in 1752. 

'Rprf T Duke of Austria, and after- 
1 * wards Emperor of Ger¬ 

many, son of Rodolph of Hapsburg, was 
born in 1248. On the death of his father 
in 1292 he claimed the empire, but his 
arrogant conduct drove the electors to 
choose Adolphus of Nassau emperor. 
Adolphus, after a reign of six years, hav¬ 
ing lost the regard of all the princes of 
the empire, Albert was elected to succeed 
him. A battle ensued near Gellheim. in 
which Adolphus fell by the hand of his 
adversary, who was elected and crowned. 
Pope Boniface VIII, however, refused to 
acknowledge him as emperor, and ordered 
the electoral princes to renounce their 
allegiance to him. On the other hand, 
Albert formed an alliance with Philip le 
Bel of France, and offered so determined 
and successful a resistance to the papal 
authority that Boniface was induced to 
withdraw his opposition, on condition 

















Albert 


Albertus 


that Albert would break with his French 
ally. During the subsequent years of his 
reign the emperor was engaged in un¬ 
successful wars with Holland, Hungary, 
Bohemia, and other States. His measures 
to strengthen his authority over the Swiss 
Forest Cantons of Unterwalden, Schwyz, 
and Uri drove the inhabitants into open 
revolt in Jan., 1308. While on his way to 
crush the Swiss he was assassinated, at 
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1298, by his nephew, 
John, Duke of Suabia, whose inheritance 
he had seized upon. He was distin¬ 
guished for avarice, cruelty and unprin¬ 
cipled ambition. 

Albert Duke of Prussia, and last 
9 grand-master of the Teutonic 
Order, was born in 1490; died in 1568. 
In 1511 he was chosen by the Teutonic 
knights grand-master of their order. Be¬ 
ing nephew of Sigismund, King of Poland, 
the knights hoped by his means to be 
freed from the feudal superiority of 
Poland, and placed under the protection 
of the empire. This superiority, how¬ 
ever, Sigismund refused to surrender, and 
war broke out between uncle and nephew. 
He subsequently became reconciled to his 
uncle, abandoned the vows of his order, 
became a Protestant, and obtained his 
investiture as hereditary duke of Prussia 
under the Polish crown, the territorial 
rights of the Teutonic Order being thus 
set aside. The latter years of his reign 
were spent in organizing the government 
and promoting the prosperity of his 
duchy; he founded schools and churches, 
established a ducal library, and opened 
the University of Konigsberg in 1543. 
Albert Prince, Albert Francis Augus- 
9 tus Charles Emmanuel, Prince 
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. second son of 
Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, was 
born 26th August, 1819. In 1837 he en¬ 
tered the University of Bonn, and on Feb. 
10, 1840, was married to his cousin. Queen 
Victoria of England. He received the title 
of Royal Highness by patent, was made a 
field-marshal, a Knight of the Garter, of 
the Bath, etc. Other honors were subse¬ 
quently bestowed upon him, the chief of 
which was the title of Prince Consort 
(1857). He carefully abstained from 
party politics, but never ceased to take 
a deep and active interest in the welfare 
of the people in general. He presided 
and delivered the inaugural address at the 
meeting of the British Association at 
Aberdeen in 1859. He died of typhoid 
fever on December 14, 1861. after a short 
illness. A biography of the prince by 
Sir Theodore Martin has been published 
in five volumes, London, 1875-80. 

AVhprf T King of Belgium, born 1875, 
xiiuei t gon of Count philip of 


Flanders and nephew of Leopold II whom 
he succeeded Dec. 23, 1909. He has been 
an active traveler and has visited the 
Congo Free State, in which he proposes 
to establish a policy of humanity and 
progress. 

Alberta l?iA er ' ta)i .""I’ 1 i he f 

1905 one of the Northwest 
Territories of Canada, was then made 
a province of the Dominion and its area 
much increased, embracing the western 
half of the former territory of Athabasca 
and strips of Saskatchewan and Assini- 
boia. It is a region of great fertility and 
has coal mines. Pop. (1911) 372,919. 
Alhprt "Edward Prince of Wales. 

211 Deri Ujawara, gee Edward VII 
Albert Edward Nyanza, ^f e e ° f 

110 miles w. of Victoria Nyanza, and 100 

miles s. by w. of Albert Nyanza. It is 

about 40 miles in both length and breadth 

and is connected with the Albert Nyanza 

by the Semliki river. Elevation, 2870 

feet; discovered by Stanley in 1870. 

Alhprt Tab a cit y. capital of Free- 

Aiueil -Led, born G0 '' Minnesota> on 

Albert Lea and Fountain lakes, 108 miles 
s. of Minneapolis. It has various schools 
and colleges, including Albert Lea Col¬ 
lege, founded for the higher Christian 
education of women. Here are grain ele¬ 
vators, foundries, woolen and flour mills, 
etc. Pop. 6,192. 

Albert Nyanza Oji-an'za), a lake of 

J Africa, one of the 

feeders of the Nile, lying (approximately) 
between lat. 2° 30' and 1° 10' n., and 
with its northeast extremity in about Ion. 
28° e. ; general direction from northeast to 
southwest; surface about 2200 feet above 
sea level. It is surrounded by precipitous 
cliffs, and bounded on the west and south¬ 
west by great ranges of mountains. It 
abounds with fish, and its shores are 
infested with crocodiles and hippopotami. 
It receives the Nile from the Victoria 
Nyanza, and this river traverses its north¬ 
ern section. 

Arhprfifp (al'ber-tit), a variety of 
mueiliie asphalt occurring in sub- 

carboniferous rocks in Nova Scotia. It 
is regarded as an inspissated and oxygen¬ 
ated petroleum. Is jet black in color. 
Albertus (al-ber'tus) Magnus, or 
Albert the Great, Count 
of Bollstadt, a distinguished German 
scholar of the thirteenth century, born in 
1193, studied at Padua, became a monk of 
the Dominican order, teaching in the 
schools of Hildesheim, Ratisbon, and 
Cologne, where Thomas Aquinas became 
his pupil. In 1245 he went to Paris and 
publicly expounded the doctrines of 
Aristotle, notwithstanding the prohibition 



Albi 


Albret 


of the church. He became rector of the 
school of Cologne in 1249; in 1254 he 
was made provincial of his order in Ger¬ 
many ; and in 1260 he received from Pope 
Alexander IV the appointment of Bishop 
of Ratisbon. In 1263 he retired to his 
convent at Cologne, where he composed 
many works, especially commentaries on 
Aristotle. He died in 1280. Owing to 
his profound knowledge he did not escape 
the imputation of using magical arts and 
trafficking with the Evil One. 

Al'bi. See Ally. 

AlblP’PPSPS (al-bi-jen'sez), a sect 
xiiuigenaca which gpread widely in 

the south of France and elsewhere about 
the twelfth century, and which rejected 
Scripture, infant baptism, marriage, 
churches, priesthood, and the mass, and 
admitted the equality of good and evil. 
They are said to have been so named 
from the district of Albi, where, and 
about Toulouse, Narbonne, etc., they were 
numerous. A crusade was begun in 1209 
against them and against Count Raymond 
VI of Toulouse for exploiting them. 
This crusade, political rather than relig¬ 
ious, was very cruelly waged to bring 
Languedoc into submission to the crown 
of France. Beziers, the capital of Ray¬ 
mond’s nephew Roger, was taken by 
storm, and 20,000 of the inhabitants, with¬ 
out distinction of creed, were put to the 
sword. Simon de Montfort, the military 
leader of the crusade, was equally severe 
towards other places in the territory of 
Raymond and his allies. After the death 
of Raymond VI, in 1222, his son, Ray¬ 
mond VII, was obliged, notwithstanding 
his readiness to do penance, to defend his 
inheritance against the papal legates and 
Louis VIII of France. When very many 
thousands had fallen on both sides, a 
peace was made in 1229, by which Ray¬ 
mond was obliged to cede Narbonne with 
other territories to Louis IX, and make 
his son-in-law, a brother of Louis, his 
heir. The heretics were now delivered up 
to the proselytizing Dominicans, and to 
the inquisition, and they disappeared 
after the middle of the thirteenth century. 
Albina (al-be'na), formerly a city of 
Multnomah Co., Oregon, now a 
part of Portland. 

AlbinOS (M-bl'noz), the name given to 
those persons from whose 
skin, hair, and eyes, in consequence of 
some defect in physiological activity, the 
dark coloring matter is absent. The skin 
of albinos, therefore, whether they belong 
to the white, Indian, or negro races, is of 
a uniform pale milky color, their hair is 
white, while the irides of their eyes are 
pale-rose color, and the pupil intensely 


red, the absence of the dark pigment al¬ 
lowing the multitude of blood-vessels in 
these parts of the eye to be seen. For the 
same reason their eyes are not well suited 
to endure the bright light of day, and 
they see best in shade or by moonlight. 
The peculiarity of albinism or leucopathy 
is always born with the individual, and is 
not confined to the human race, having 
been observed also in horses, rabbits, rats, 
mice, etc., birds (white crows or white 
blackbirds are not particularly uncom¬ 
mon), and fishes. 

Albion (al'bi-on) (Celtic Albainn, 
probably connected with L. 
albus, white), the earliest name by which 
the island of Great Britain was known, 
employed by Aristotle, and in poetry still 
used for Great Britain. The same word 
as Albany, Albyn. 

Albion a c * ty Calhoun Co., Michi- 
u u > gan, on the Kalamazoo River, 
39 miles s. s. w. of Lansing. It has manu¬ 
factures of iron, harness, farming uten¬ 
sils, windmills, etc. Pop. 5,833. 

Albion a village, capital of Orleans 
A1U1UI1, Co , New Yorkj on the Erie 

Canal, 30 miles w. of Rochester. It has 
extensive stone-quarries and iron manu¬ 
factories. Here is situated the Western 
House of Refuge for Women. Pop. 5,016. 
Albifp (al'bit) or Soda-felspar, a 
mineral, a kind of felspar, 
usually of a white color, to which prop¬ 
erty it owes its name (L. albus, white), 
but occasionally bluish, grayish, greenish, 
or reddish white. 

Alboin (al'boin), King of the Lom¬ 
bards, succeeded his father 
Audoin in 561, and reigned in Noricum 
and Pannonia. Narses, the general of 
Justinian, sought his alliance, and re¬ 
ceived his aid, in the war against Totila, 
king of the Ostrogoths. Alboin after¬ 
wards (in 568) undertook the conquest of 
Italy, where Narses, who had subjected 
this country to Justinian, offended by an 
ungrateful court, sought an avenger in 
Alboin, and offered him his co-operation. 
After a victorious career in Italy he was 
slain at Verona, in 573 or 574, by an 
assassin, instigated by his wife Rosamond, 
whose hatred he had incurred by sending 
her, in one of his fits of intoxication, a 
cup wrought from the skull of her father, 
and forcing her to drink from it. 
Albreobt (Al'breftt), the German form 
aiU1CUU of Albert (which see). 

Albrechtsberger (Al'brefcts-ber-gfcr), 
° Johann Georg, a 
German composer and writer on music; 
a teacher of Beethoven, Moscheles, etc. 
Born 1736, died 1809. 

Albret, D ’ Jeanne (zhfin dal-bra), 
Queen of Navarre, wife of 



Albronze 


Alby 


Antoine de Bourbon and mother of Henri 
IV of France, a zealous supporter of the 
reformed religion, which she established 
in her kingdom; born 1528, died (prob¬ 
ably poisoned), 1572, shortly before the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

Arhrmi 7 P an alloy of aluminum and 
XII uiuiize, copper> of very durable 

character, used for telescope bearings, etc. 
Alhllpra (al-bu-a'rd), a village of 
Spain, in Estremadura, 12 
miles s. s. E. of Badajoz. A battle was 
fought here, May 16, 1811, between the 
nrmy of Marshal Beresford (30,000) and 
that of Marshal Soult (25,000), when the 
latter was obliged to retreat to Seville, 
leaving Badajoz to fall into the hands of 
the allies. Pod. 800. 

Albugo (al'bu'go), an affection of the 
® eye, consisting of a white opac¬ 
ity in the cornea; called also leucoma. 
Arblim a name now generally given to 
9 a blank book for the reception 
of pieces of poetry, autographs, engrav¬ 
ings. photographs, post cards, etc. 

AlVmmpn (al-bfl'men), or Albumin 
AiDumen (L , from alhug white)> a 

substance, or rather group of substances, 
so named from the Latin for the white 
of an egg, which is one of its most abun¬ 
dant known forms. It may be taken as 
the type of the protein compounds or the 
nitrogenous class of foodstuffs. One va¬ 
riety enters largely into the composition 
of the animal fluids and solids, is coagu- 
lable by heat at and above 160°, and is 
composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, 
and oxygen, with a little sulohur. It 
abounds in the serum of the blood, the 
vitreous and crystalline humors of the 
eye, the fluid of dropsy, the substance 
called coagulable lymph, in nutritive mat¬ 
ters, the juice of flesh, etc. The blood 
contains about 7 per cent, of albumen. 
Another variety, called vegetable albu¬ 
men, exists in most vegetable juices and 
many seeds, and has nearly the same com¬ 
position and properties as egg albumen. 
When albumen coagulates in any fluid it 
readily encloses any substance that .may 
be suspended in the fluid. Hence it is 
used to clarify syrupy liquors. In cookery 
white of eggs is employed for clarifying, 
but in large operations like sugar-refin¬ 
ing the serum of blood is used. From its 
being coagulable by various salts, and es¬ 
pecially by corrosive sublimate, with 
which it forms an insoluble compound, 
white of egg is a convenient antidote in 
cases of poisoning by that substance. 
With lime it forms a cement to mend 
broken ware. 

In botany the name albumen is given 
to the farinaceous matter which sur¬ 
rounds the embryo, the term in this case 


having no reference to chemical composi¬ 
tion. It constitutes the meat of the 
cocoanut, the flour or meal of cereals, 
the roasted part of coffee, etc. 

Alhnrnprmria (al-bu-me-nu'ri-a), or 
Xliuumenuria Albuminuria, a con¬ 
dition in which the urine contains albu¬ 
men, evidencing a diseased state of the 
kidneys. 

Alhirnol (dl-bu-nyol'), a seaport of 
xxiuunui southern gpain< prov Gra _ 

nada, on the Mediterranean. Pop. 
8,500. 

Albuquerque (al-bu-kerk'a). Affon- 

^ ^ so de, an eminent 

Portuguese admiral, born 1452, died in 
1515. Portugal having subjected to its 
power a large part of the western coast 
of Africa, and begun to extend its sway 
in the East Indies, Albuquerque was ap¬ 
pointed viceroy of the Portuguese acquisi¬ 
tions in this quarter, and arrived in 1503 
with a fleet on the coast of Malabar. 
His career here was extremely successful, 
he having extended the Portuguese power 
over Malabar, Ceylon, the Sunda Islands, 
and the Peninsula of Malacca, and made 
the Portuguese name respected by all the 
nations and princes of India. 

Albuquerque 

ico, on the Bio Grande, 56 miles south¬ 
west of Santa F 6 ; has a large trade in 
hides and wool and gold, silver and other 
mines in its vicinity. Pop. 11,020. 

Albur'num < a *-. b f ur ' nn “K the “ft 

white substance which, 
in trees, is found be¬ 
tween the liber or inner 
bark and the wood, and 
in progress of time ac- 
quiring solidity, becomes H 
itself the wood. A new 
layer of wood, or rather 
of alburnum, is added 
annually to the tree in 
every part just under 
the bark. 

ah / 0 vi, a .!\ Q na. Aiournum 

Albury ( al .ber-i), a or sap .wood. 

rising town 55 Heart-wood, 
of New South Wales on c. Pith. dd. Bark, 
the borders of Victoria, 
on the right bank of the Murray, 190 
miles northeast of Melbourne, in a good 
agricultural and wine-producing district. 
Pop. of district about 5821. 

Albv or Albi (al'be), an old town of 
3 9 southern France, department of 
Tarn, 42 miles northeast of Toulouse, on 
the Tarn, in an extensive plain. It has 
a cathedral, a Gothic structure, begun 
in 1282; and manufactures of linens, cot¬ 
tons, leather, etc. Alby is said to have 
given the Albigenses their name. Pop. 
14,951. 



Alburnum. 
an. Alburnum 



Alcaeus 


Alchemy 


AlcffiUS ( a l _sg, us), one of the greatest 
^ Grecian lyric poets, was born 

at Mitylene, in Lesbos, and flourished 
there at the close of the seventh and be¬ 
ginning of the sixth centuries b.c. ; but of 
his life little is known. A strong, manly 
enthusiasm for freedom and justice per¬ 
vades his lyrics, of which only a few 
fragments are left. He wrote in the 
iEolic dialect, and was the inventor of a 
metre that bears his name, which Horace 
has employed in many of his odes. 

Alcala de Guadaira ( g a J; k ^ r f • 

‘ the Castle of Guadaira ’ ), a town of 
Southern Spain, on the Guadaira, 7 miles 
east of Seville, chiefly celebrated for its 
manufacture of bread, with which it sup¬ 
plies a large Dart of the population of 
Seville. Pop. about 8,000. 

Alcall de Henares cit * 

of Spain, 16 miles E. N. e. of Madrid, 1 
mile from the Henares. It has an im¬ 
posing appearance when seen from some 
distance, but on nearer inspection is 
found to be in a state of decay. There 
was formerly a university here, at one 
time attended by 10,000 students, but in 
1836 it was removed with its library to 
Madrid. Cervantes was born here. Pop. 
11,206. 

Alrala la *Rpal (ra-ai'), a town of 

iiicaia 1 a xieai gpain 18 miles 

s. w. of Jaen, with a fine abbey and some 
trade. It was captured in 1340 by 
Alphonso XI of Leon, from whence it 
derives the epithet Real (‘Royal’). 
Pop. 15.973. 

AIpqIHp (Spanish; al-kal'da), or Al- 
xxicaiuc CAIDE (Portuguese ; al-ki'da; 

Arabic alqadi, the judge), the name of a 
magistrate in the Spanish and Portuguese 
towns, to whom the administration of 
justice and the regulation of the police 
is committed. His office nearly corre¬ 
sponds to that of justice of the peace. 
The name and the office are of Moorish 
origin. 

Aina inn (al'ka-mo), a city in the west 
AiOdlliU of Sicily, 2y 2 miles south of 
the Gulf of Castellamare, near the site of 
the ancient Segesta, the ruins of which, 
including a well-preserved Doric temple 
and a theater as well as the remains of 
Moorish occupation, are still to be found 
here. The district is celebrated for its 
wine. Pop. 51,809. 

Aina rn r? (al-kan-yeth'), a town of 
Nor theastern Spain (Ara¬ 
gon). Pop. 7,806. 

Alnan+ara (al-kan'ta-ra) (Arabic, 

Aicamara the bridge) an ancie nt 

town and frontier fortress of Spain, on 
the Tagus, on a rocky acclivity, and in¬ 


closed by ancient walls. Pop. about 3,000. 
Order of Alcantara , an ancient Spanish 
order of knighthood instituted for de¬ 
fense against the Moors in 1156, and 
made a military religious order in 1197. 
Alnarra> 7 a (al-kar-r&'tha), a vessel 

Aicarraza made of a kind of porous? 

unglazed pottery, used in Spain to hold 
drinking water, which, oozing slightly 
through the vessel, is kept cool by the 
evaporation that takes place at the sur¬ 
face. Similar vessels have been long 
used in Egypt and elsewhere. 

AMzar de San Juan ( ^' kr ^ 

da s a n- 

ftwan), a town of Spain, province of 
Ciudad-Real (New Castile), with manu¬ 
factures of soap, saltpetre, gunpowder, 
chocolate, etc. Pop. 11,499. 

Alce'do. See Kingfisher. 

Alpp«sti« (al-ses'tis), in Greek mythol- 
ogy, wife of Admetus, King of 
Thessaly. Her husband was ill, and, ac¬ 
cording to an oracle, would die unless 
some one made a vow to meet death in 
his stead. This was secretly done by Al- 
cestis, and Admetus recovered. After her 
decease Hercules brought her back from 
the infernal regions. 

AlrTiPmv or Alchymy (al'ke-mi), 
^ 9 the art which in former 
times occupied the place of and paved 
the way for the modern science of chem¬ 
istry (as astrology did for astronomy), 
but whose aims were not scientific, being 
confined solely to the discovery of the 
means of indefinitely prolonging human 
life, and of transmuting the baser metals 
into gold and silver. Among the al¬ 
chemists it was generally thought neces¬ 
sary to find a substance which, contain¬ 
ing the original principle of all matter, 
should possess the power of dissolving all 
substances into their elements. This gen¬ 
eral solvent, or menstruum universale , 
which at the same time was to possess 
the power of removing all the seeds of 
disease out of the human body and re¬ 
newing life, was called the philosopher's 
stone , lapis philosophorum , and its pre¬ 
tended possessors were known as adepts. 
Alchemy flourished chiefly in the middle 
ages, though how old might be such no¬ 
tions as those by which the alchemists 
were inspired it is difficult to say. The 
mythical Hermes Trismegistus of pre- 
Christian times was said to have left be¬ 
hind him many books of magical and al¬ 
chemical learning, and after him alchemy 
received the name of the hermetic art. 
At a later period chemistry and alchemy 
were cultivated among the Arabians, and 
by them the pursuit was introduced into 
Europe, the studies of the alchemists lead- 



Alcibiades 


Alcohol 


ing to valuable chemical discoveries. 
Many of the monks devoted themselves 
to alchemy, although they were latterly 
prohibited from studying it by the popes. 
But there was one even among these, 
John XXII, who was fond of alchemy. 
Raymond Lully, or Lullius, a famous al¬ 
chemist of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, is said to have changed for 
King Edward I a mass of 50,000 lbs. of 
quicksilver into gold, of which the first 
rose-nobles were coined. Among other al¬ 
chemists may be mentioned Paracelsus 
and Basilius Valentinus. When more ra¬ 
tional principles of chemistry and philos¬ 
ophy began to be diffused and to shed 
light on chemical phenomena the rage for 
alchemy gradually decreased. It is still 
impossible to assert anything with cer¬ 
tainty about the transmutation of metals. 
Alr>iTvinHp<l (al-se-bi'a-des), an Athe- 

Aicioiaaes nian of high family and 

of great abilities, but lacking moral prin¬ 
ciple, was born at Athens in b.c. 450, 
being the son of Cleinias, and a relative 
of Pericles, who also was his guardian. 
In youth he was remarkable for the 
beauty of his person, no less than for the 
dissoluteness of his manners. He came 
under the influence of Socrates, but little 
permanent effect was produced on his 
character by the precepts of the sage. 
He acquired great popularity by his liber¬ 
ality in providing for the amusements of 
the people, and after the death of Cleon 
attained a political ascendency which left 
him no rival but Nicias. Thus he was en¬ 
abled to play an important part in the 
long-continued Peloponnesian war. In 
415 he advocated an expedition against 
Sicily, and was chosen one of the leaders, 
but before the expedition sailed he was 
charged with profaning and divulging the 
Eleusinian mysteries, and mutilating the 
busts of Hermes, which were set up in 
public all through Athens. Rather than 
stand his trial he went over to Sparta, 
divulged the plans of the Athenians, and 
assisted the Spartans to defeat them. 
Sentence of death and confiscation was 
pronounced against him at Athens, and 
he was cursed by the ministers of religion. 
He soon left Sparta and took refuge with 
the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, in¬ 
gratiating himself by his affectation of 
Persian manners, as he had previously 
done at Sparta by a similar affectation 
of Spartan simplicity. He now began to 
intrigue for his return to Athens, offering 
to bring Tissaphernes over to the Athe¬ 
nian alliance, and latterly he was recalled 
and his banishment cancelled. He, how¬ 
ever, remained abroad for some years in 
command of the Athenian forces, gained 
several victories, and took Chalcedon and 


Byzantium. In b.c. 407 he returned to 
Athens, but in 406 the fleet which he 
commanded having suffered a severe 
defeat, he was deprived of his command. 
He once more went over to the Persians, 
taking refuge with the satrap Pharna- 
bazus of Phrygia, and here he was assas¬ 
sinated in b.c. 404. 

A1 pin mi q (al-sin'o-us), King of the 
xiii/iuuuo Phaeacians> gee m y 88es . 

Alrira (al-the'ra), a well-built and 
strongly fortified town of 
Spain, province of Valencia, founded by 
the Carthaginians. Pop. of commune 
20,572. 

A1 pm an (alk'man), the chief lyric poet 

Aicman of Sparta) a Lydian by birtht 

flourished between b.c. 671 and 631, and 
wrote (in the Doric dialect), love songs, 
hymns, paeans, etc., of which only frag¬ 
ments remain. 

Alcmena. See Amphitryon. 

A1CO (^ko), the native American gen¬ 
eric name of Ganis familiaris , 
var. Americanus, a dog inhabiting Peru 
and Mexico, having a small head, large, 
pendulous ears, an arched back, a short 
and pendant tail. The fur is long, yellow¬ 
ish on the back and the tail is whitish. 
It is akin to the shepherd dog and has 
been domesticated. 

AlpnRapa (al-ko-ba'sa), a small town 
xilCUUd^d of p or t U g ab 50 miles n. 

of Lisbon, celebrated for a magnificent 
Cistercian monastery founded in 1148 by 
Don Alphonso I, and containing several 
royal tombs. Pop. 2309. 

AlpnTinl (al'ko-hol). the hydrate of 
u hydrocarbon radical, is the 
spirituous or intoxicating part of starch 
or sugar containing liquids that have 
undergone fermentation, it being extracted 
by distillation—a limpid, colorless liquid, 
of an agreeable smell and a strong, 
pungent taste. When brandy, whisky, 
and other spirituous liquors, themselves 
distilled from cruder materials, are again 
distilled, highly volatile alcohol is the first 
product to pass off. The alcohol thus 
obtained contains much extraneous 
matter, including a proportion of water, 
from the first as high as 20 or 25 per 
cent, and increasing greatly as the process 
continues. Charcoal and carbonate of 
soda put in the brandy or other liquor 
partly retain the fusel-oil and acetic acid 
it contains. The product thus obtained 
by distillation is called rectified spirits 
or spirits of wine , and contains from 55 
to 85 per cent, of alcohol, the rest 
being water. By distilling rectified 
spirits over carbonate of potassium, 
powdered quicklime, or chloride of cal¬ 
cium, the greater part of the water is 



Alcohol 


Alcuin 


retained, and nearly pure alcohol passes 
over. It is only, however, by very pro¬ 
longed digestion with desiccating agents 
and subsequent distillation that the last 
traces of water can be removed. The 
specific gravity of alcohol varies with its 
purity, decreasing as the quantity of 
water it contains decreases. This prop¬ 
erty is a convenient test of the alcoholic 
strength of liquors that contain only al¬ 
cohol and water; but on account of the 
condensation that invariably takes place 
on the mixture of these two liquids, it can 
be applied only in connection with special 
tables of reference, or by means of an in¬ 
strument specially adapted for the pur¬ 
pose. (See Alcoholometer.) Alcohol is 
composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxy¬ 
gen, in the proportions expressed by the 
formula C 2 H 6 0. This is ethyl or grain 
alcohol, the only variety fit for internal 
use. Under a barometric pressure of 
29.5 inches it boils at 173° F. (78.4° C.) ; 
in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump 
it boils at ordinary temperatures. Its 
congelation has been effected only in re¬ 
cent times at the low temperature of 
—203° F. Its very low freezing-point 
renders it valuable for use in thermom¬ 
eters for very low temperatures. 
Alcohol is extremely inflammable, and 
burns with a pale-blue flame, scarcely 
visible in bright daylight. It occasions 
no carbonaceous deposit upon substances 
held over it, and the products of its com¬ 
bustion are carbon dioxide and water. 
The steady and uniform heat which it 
gives during combustion makes it a valu¬ 
able material for fuel. It dissolves the 
vegetable acids; the volatile oils, the 
resins, tan, and extractive matter, and 
many of the soaps; the greater num¬ 
ber of the fixed oils are taken up by 
it in small quantities only, but some are 
dissolved largely. When alcohol is sub¬ 
mitted to distillation with certain acids 
a peculiar compound is formed, called 
ether (which see). It is alcohol which 
gives all intoxicating liquors the property 
whence they are so called. Alcohol acts 
strongly. on the nervous system, and 
though in small doses it is stimulating 
and exhilarating, in large doses it acts as 
a poison. In medicine it is often of great 
service. 

The name alcohol is also applied in 
chemistry to a large group of compounds 
of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen whose 
chemical properties are analogous to that 
of common or ethylic alcohol. Methyl or 
wood alcohol (C.H 4 0.) is extremely 
poisonous when ingested, producing blind¬ 
ness and death. Under a recent law de¬ 
natured alcohol, that is, alcohol which has 
been made unfit for use as a beverage by 


the addition of nauseous ingredients, may 
be used as fuel or for other industrial 
purposes without payment of the internal 
tax laid on untreated alcohol. 

(al'ko-hol-izm), a morbid 

condition of the bQdy 
(especially of the nervous system) 
brought on by the immoderate use of al¬ 
coholic liquors. 

Alcoholometer (om'e-ter), an in¬ 
strument constructed 
on the principle of the hydrometer to 
determine from the specific gravity of 
spirituous liquors the percentage of al¬ 
cohol they contain, the scale marking 
directly the required proportion. If the 
liquor contain anything besides water and 
alcohol, previous distillation is necessary. 

Alco'ran. See Koran. 


'r»n+t IjOUIsa May, an American 
’ authoress, born in 1832. She 
wrote a number of books chiefly intended 
for the young: Little Women , An Old- 
Fashioned Girl, Little Men , Jack and 
Gill, etc. Died in 1888. 

Alcove (al'kov), a recess in a room, 
usually separated from the 
rest of the room by columns, a balustrade, 
or by curtains, and often containing a 
bed or seats. 

AIpov (al-ko'e), a town of Spain, in 
y Valencia, 24 miles N. by w. of 
Alicante, in a richly cultivated district. 
There is a Roman bridge over the river, 
and the town has a very picturesque ap¬ 
pearance ; its chief manufactures are 
paper and woolens. Pop. 32,053. 

Alcudia, Duke of. See Godoy. 

Alcuin (alk'win; in his native tongue 
Ealhwine), a learned English¬ 
man, the confidant, instructor, and ad¬ 
viser of Charles the Great (Charle¬ 
magne). He was born at York in 735, 
and was educated and later had the 
management of the school at York. 
Alcuin having gone to Rome, Charle¬ 
magne became acquainted with him at 
Parma, invited him in 782 to his court, 
and made use of his services in his en¬ 
deavors to civilize his subjects. To secure 
the benefit of his instructions Charle¬ 
magne established at his court a school, 
called Schola Palatina, or the Palace 
School. In the royal academy Alcuin 
was called Flaccus Albinas. Most of the 
schools of that period in France were 
either founded or improved by him; thus 
he founded the school in the abbey of St. 
Martin of Tours, in 796, after the plan 
of the school in York. Alcuin left the 
court in 801, and retired to the abbey of 
St. Martin of Tours, but kept up a con¬ 
stant correspondence with Charles to his 



Alcyonaria 


Aldershot 


death in 804. He left works on theology, 
philosophy, rhetoric, also poems and let¬ 
ters, all of which have been published. 

Alcyonaria (al-si-o-aa'ri-a), ccelen- 

J terate animals forming 

a great division of the class Actinozoa 
(see Sea-anemone ). These animals are 
nearly all composite, and the individual 
polyps have mostly eight tentacles. They 



Alcyonaria. 

1. Sea-fan (Gorgonia flabellum). 2. Sea-pen 
(Pennatula phosphorea ). 3. Cornularia rugosa. 


include the organ-pipe corals, sea-pens, 
fan-corals, etc., as also the red coral of 
commerce. The polyps essentially re¬ 
semble those of the genus Alcyonium in 
structure, and in the number and arrange¬ 
ment of the tentacles. See Alcyonium. 
Alrvonium (al-si-6'ni-um), a genus of 
ni ^ umuiu coelenterate animals, one 
familiar species of which, dredged around 
the British coasts— A. digitdtum —is 
named ‘ Dead-Men’s Fingers, ’ or ‘ Cows’ 
Paps, ’ from its lobed or digitate appear¬ 
ance. It grows attached to stones, shells, 
and other objects. It consists of a mass 
of little polyps, each polyp possessing 
eight little fringed tentacles disposed 
around a central mouth. The Alcyonium 
forms the type of the Alcyonaria. 

A Irian (al'dan), a river of Eastern 
uctii Siberia, a tributary of the 
Lena, 1200 miles in length. The Aldan 
Mountains run along parallel to it on 
the left for 400 miles. 

Aldebaran (al-deb'a-ran) a star of 
the first magnitude, form¬ 
ing the eye of the constellation Taurus or 
the Bull, the brightest of the five stars 
known to the Greeks as the Hyades. 
Spectrum analysis has shown it to con¬ 
tain antimony, bismuth, iron, mercury, 
hydrogen, sodium, calcium, etc. 

Aldehvde (al'de-hid), the oxidation 
xxiucu.yuc product of an alcohol in _ 

termediate between it and its acid. Com- 
7—1 


mon aldehyde (C 2 H 4 0) is derived from 
spirit of wine by oxidation, and is a color¬ 
less, limpid, volatile, and inflammable 
liquid, with a peculiar ethereal odor, 
which is suffocating when strong; specific 
gravity, 0.79. It oxidizes in air, and is 
converted into acetic acid. It rapidly de¬ 
composes oxide of silver, depositing a 
brilliant film of metallic silver; hence it 
is used in silvering curved glass surfaces. 
Alder (td^er; Alnus), a genus of 
plants, nat. order Betulaceae 
(Birch), consisting of trees and shrubs 
inhabiting the temperate and colder re¬ 
gions of the globe. Common alder ( Alnus 
glutinosa ) is a tree which grows in wet 
situations in Europe, Asia, and the 
United States. Its wood, light and soft 
and of a reddish color, is used for a 
variety of purposes, and is well adapted 
for work which is to be kept constantly 
in water. The roots and knots furnish a 
beautifully-veined wood well suited for 
cabinet work. The bark is used in tan¬ 
ning and leather dressing, and by fisher¬ 
men for staining their nets. This and the 
young twigs are sometimes employed in 
dyeing, and yield different shades of yel¬ 
low and red. With the addition of cop¬ 
peras it yields a black dye. 

Alderman (al'der-man; Anglo-Saxon 

Xliuciiudu ea i dormanf from ea i dorf 

older, and man), among the Anglo-Saxons 
a person of a rank equivalent to that of 
an earl or count, the governor of a shire 
or county, and member of the witena- 
gemdt or great council of the nation. 
Aldermen, at present, in the United States 
and England, are officers associated with 
the mayor of a city for the administration 
of the municipal government, constituting 
a local legislating body. 

Aldernev (al'der-ne, French Auri- 
2 gny ), an island belonging 
to Britain off the coast of Normandy, 
the most northerly of the Channel Islands, 
between 3 and 4 miles long, and about 
1 3 /4 broad. The coast is bold and rocky, 
the interior fertile. About a third of the 
island is occupied by grass lands; and 
the Alderney cows, a small-sized but 
handsome breed, are famous for the rich¬ 
ness of their milk. The climate is mild 
and healthy. A judge, with six ‘ jurats, ’ 
chosen by the people for life, and twelve 
* douzaniers,’ representatives of the peo¬ 
ple, form a kind of local legislature. The 
French language still prevails among the 
inhabitants, but all understand and many 
speak English. The Race of Alderney 
is the strait between the coast of France 
and this island. Pop. about 2,000. 
Aldershot (al'der-shot), a town and 
military station in Eng¬ 
land, the latter having given rise to the 



Aldhelm 


Aleman 


former. The station is used for exercise 
in camp life and the arts of war. Pop. 
(including military), 35,175. 

AIHTipItti (ald'heim), an Anglo-Saxon 
aiuiiciiu scholar and palate, Bishop 

of Sherborne, born 640; died 709. He 
was a great fosterer of learning and 
is considered one of the most precious 
writings on theological subjects. 

Al'dine Editions, , the « iv £ n 

7 to the works 
which proceeded from the press of Aldus 
Manutius and his family at Venice 
(1490-1597). (See Manutius.) Recom¬ 
mended by their value, as well as by a 
splendid exterior, they have gained the 
respect of scholars and the attention of 
book-collectors. Many of them are the 
first printed editions (editiones prin- 
cipes) of Greek and Latin classics. 
Others are texts of the modern Italian 
authors. These editions are of impor¬ 
tance in the history of printing. Aldus 
had nine kinds of Greek type, and no one 
before him printed so much and so beau¬ 
tifully in this language. Of the Latin 
character, he procured fourteen kinds of 
type. 

Aldobrandini 

name of a 1 lorentine 
family which rose to princely rank, pro¬ 
duced one pope (Clement VIII) and 
several cardinals, archbishops, bishops, 
and men of learning. It is now extinct. 
—Aldobrandini Marriage, an ancient 
fresco painting belonging probably to the 
time of Augustus, discovered in 1606, and 
acquired by Cardinal Aldobrandini, 
nephew of Clement VIII, now in the 
Vatican. It represents a marriage scene 
in which ten persons are portrayed, and 
is considered one of the most precious 
relics of ancient art 

Aldred (al'dred), or Ealdred, Anglo- 
Saxon prelate, Bishop of 
Worcester and Archbishop of York, born 
1000 (?), died 1069. He improved the 
discipline of the church and built several 
ecclesiastical edifices. On the death of 
Edward the Confessor he is said to have 
crowned Harold. Having submitted to 
the Conqueror, whose esteem he enjoyed 
and whose power he made subservient to 
the views of the church, he also crowned 
him as well as Matilda. 

Aldrirll (ald'ritch), Henry, Dean of 
Christchurch, Oxford; born 
in 1647, died in 1710; distinguished as a 
writer on logic, as an architect, and as a 
musician. His Compendium of Logic 
was a text-book till quite recently. He 
adapted many of the works of the older 
musicians, such as Palestrina and Caris- 
simi, to the liturgy of the Church of 
England, and composed many services 


and anthems, some of which are still heard 
in English cathedrals. 

Aldrich ( a id' ri J)» nelson wilmarth, 
a prominent American 
legislator, born at Foster, Rhode Island, 
in 1841. Elected to the State Assembly 
in 1875, he became its speaker next year; 
representative in Congress in 1879; 
United States Senator from Rhode Island 
after 1881. He attained a position of 
great influence in the Senate and by his 
control of the Republican members be¬ 
came a leading power in legislation. In 
1911 he withdrew from the Senate. 
Ald'rich Thomas Bailey, an Ameri- 
’ can poet and writer of prose 
tales, mostly humorous, born in 1836, was 
a short time in a mercantile house, but 
soon adopted literature as a profession 
and was for a time editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly. He published in verse: Bal¬ 
lad of Baby Bell; Pampinea and other 
Poems; Cloth of Gold and other Poems , 
etc.; in prose, Story of a Bad Boy; Mar¬ 
jory Daw , etc. He died in 1907. 
AldridP’P (ald'rij), Ira, the ‘African 
® Roscius, ’ born near Balti¬ 
more, Md., in 1810, died in 1867. He 
made a successful debflt in the Royal 
Theater, London, in Othello. On the 
continent he took high rank in Shake¬ 
speare’s tragedies ; had presents of crosses 
and medals from emperors and kings; a 
member of many of the great academies. 

Aldrovandi (al-dro-van'de) Ulysses, 
aiuiuvcuiui a distinguished Italian 

naturalist, born 1522, died 1605. He was 
professor at Bologna, and established 
botanical gardens and museums of natural 
history there; wrote a work on natural 
history in thirteen volumes. 

Ale an< ^ Beer, well known and much 
* used fermented liquors. See Brew¬ 
ing. 

Aleardi (a-la-dr'de), Aleardo, a dis¬ 
tinguished Italian lyrical and 
political poet and patriot, born 1812, died 
1878. He was a member of the Italian 
parliament and professor of aesthetics at 
Brescia. 

Ale-conner, f°™erly an officer in Eng- 
7 land appointed to assay 
ale and beer, and to take care that they 
were good and wholesome. 

Ale-cost. See Costmary. 

Alee'to in Greek mythology, one of the 
nACO Furies. See Furies. 

Aleman ( &-le-m&n'), Mateo, a Spanish 
novelist, born about the middle 
of the sixteenth century, died in 1610. 
His fame rests on his Life and Adven¬ 
tures of the Rogue Guzman de Alfarache, 
one of the best of the picaresque or rogue 
novels, which give such a lively picture of 



Alemanni 


Alengon 


the shady classes of society in Spain 
during the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. The hero becomes in succes¬ 
sion stable-boy, beggar, porter, thief, man 
of fashion, soldier, valet, merchant, 
student, robber, galley-slave, and finally 
his own biographer. 

or Alamanni (a-la-man'- 
ne), a confederacy of 
several German tribes which, at the com¬ 
mencement of the third century after 
Christ, lived near the Roman territory, 
and came then and subsequently into con¬ 
flict with the imperial troops. Caracalla 
first fought with them in 213, but did not 
conquer them ; Severus was likewise un¬ 
successful. About 250 they began to cross 
the Rhine westwards, and in 255 they 
overran Gaul along with the Franks. In 
259 a body of them was defeated in Italy 
at Milan, and in the following year they 
were driven out of Gaul by Postumus. 
But the Alemanni did not desist from 
their incursions, notwithstanding the 
numerous defeats they suffered at the 
hands of the Roman troops. In the 
fourth century they crossed the Rhine 
and ravaged Gaul, but were severely de¬ 
feated by the Emperor Julian and driven 
back. Subsequently they occupied a con¬ 
siderable territory on both sides of the 
Rhine; but Clovis broke their power in 
496 and deprived them of a large portion 
of their possessions. Part of their ter¬ 
ritory was latterly formed into a duchy 
called Alemannia or Swabia, this name 
being derived from Suevi or Swabians, the 
name which they gave themselves. It is 
from the Alemanni that the French have 
derived their names for Germans and 
Germany in general, namely, Allemands 
and Allemagne, though strictly speaking 
only the modern Swabians and northern 
Swiss are the proper descendants of that 
ancient race. 

A1 AmliArt d\ (a-lan-bar), Jean le 
nielli UCi b, r ond a French mathema¬ 
tician and philosopher, born in Paris in 
1717, and died there in 1783. He was the 
illegitimate son of Madame de Tengin, 
and was exposed at the Church of St. 
Jean le Rond (hence his name) soon after 
birth. He was brought up by the wife 
of a poor glazier, and with her he lived 
for more than forty years. His parents 
never publicly acknowledged him, but his 
father settled upon him an income of 
1200 livres. He showed much quickness 
in learning, entered the College Mazarin 
at the age of twelve, and studied mathe¬ 
matics with enthusiasm and success. 
Having left college he studied law and 
became an advocate, but did not cease 
to occupy himself with mathematics. A 
pamphlet on the motion of solid bodies 


Alemanni, 


in a fluid, and another on the integral 
calculus, which he laid before the 
Academy of Sciences in 1739 and 1740, 
showed him in so favorable a light that 
the Academy received him in 1741 into 
the number of its members. He soon 
after published his famous work on 
dynamics, Traite de Dynamique (1743) ; 
and that on fluids, Traite des Fluides. 
He also took a part in the investigations 
which completed the discoveries of New¬ 
ton respecting the motion of the heavenly 
bodies, and published at intervals various 
important astronomical dissertations, as 
well as on other subjects. He also took 
part, with Diderot and others, in the cele¬ 
brated Encyclop6die, for which he wrote 
the Discours Preliminaire, as well as 
many philosophical and almost all the 
mathematical articles. He received an 
invitation from the Russian empress 
Catherine II to go to St. Petersburg, and 
Frederick the Great invited him to Berlin, 
but in vain. From Frederick, however, 
he accepted a pension. There was an 
intimate friendship between him and 
Voltaire. 

Alembic ( a_ l em, l>ik), a simple ap¬ 
paratus sometimes used by 
chemists for distillation. The cucurbit, 
or body, contains the substance to be 
distilled, and is usually somewhat like a 
bottle, bulging below and narrowing to¬ 
wards the top; the head, of a globular 
form, with a flat under-ring, fits on to 
the neck of the cucurbit, condenses the 
vapor from the heated liquid, and receives 
the distilled liquid on the ring inclosing 
the neck of the lower vessel, and thus 
causes it to find egress by a discharging 
pipe into the third section, called the 
receiver. See Distillation. 


A 1 Amt Ain (&-lap-ta'zho ; beyond the 
Aieinicju Tagus)> the largest prov¬ 
ince of Portugal, and the most southern 
except Algarve; area 9,430 square miles; 
pop. 416,105. The capital is Evora. 

A1 ah Ann (a-lap-sop), a town of France, 
c V U11 capital of department Orne, 
and formerly of the Duchy of Alengon, 
on the right bank of the Sarthe. 105 miles 
west by south of Paris; well built: has a 
fine Gothic church (fifteenth century), 
and interesting remains of the old castle 
of the Dukes d’Alengon. Alengon was 
long famed for its point-lace, called * point 
d’Alengon,’ a branch of industry now 
much fallen off; it has cotton and flax 
spinning and weaving, etc.; fine rock- 
crystal, yielding the so-called ‘ diamants 
d’Alengon,’ is found in the neighboring 
granite quarries. Pop. 14,378.— Alenqon, 
originally a county, later a dukedom, be¬ 
came united with the crown in 1221 , and 
was given by Louis XI as an appanage 



Alentejo 


Alessandria 


to his fifth son, with whom the branch of 
the Alengon-Valois commenced. The first 
duke of the name lost his life at the 
battle of Agincourt in 1415; another, 
called Charles IV, married the celebrated 
Margaret of Valois, sister of Francis I. 
He commanded the left wing of the 
French army at the battle of Pavia, 
where, instead of supporting the king at a 
critical moment, he fled at the head of his 
troops, the consequence of which was the 
loss of the battle and the capture of the 
king. 


Alentejo. See Alemtejo. 

Alenno 

XXlCpjJU Turkov. i 


a city of Asiatic 
Turkey, in North Syria, on the 


river Koik, in a fine plain 60 miles south¬ 
east of Alexandretta, which is its port, 
and 195 miles N. N. E. of Damascus. It 
has a Circumference of about 7 miles, and 


still a trade, however, in wool, cotton, 
silk, wax, skins, soap, tobacco, etc., and 
imports a certain quantity of European 
manufactures.—Aleppo was a place of 
considerable importance in very remote 
times. By the Greeks and Romans it 
was called Bercea. It was conquered by 
the Arabs in 638, and its original name, 
Ghalybon, was then turned into Haleb , 
whence the Italian form Aleppo. Its 
population, 200,000 at the beginning of 
the last century, is now estimated at 127,- 
000, of whom perhaps 25,000 are Chris¬ 
tians. The language generally spoken is 
Arabic. 

Alpc‘h'U -1 (a-lesh'ke) a town of South- 
xiicanivi efn Rugsia gov Taurida> 0 n 

the Dnieper. Pop. 9,119. 

A1 pci a (a-le'zia), a town and fortress 
of ancient Gaul, at which in 
b. c. 52 Julius Caesar inflicted a crushing 



Aleppo. 


consists of the old town and numerous 
suburbs. Its appearance at a distance is 
striking, and the houses are well built of 
stone. On a hill stands the citadel, and 
at its foot the governor’s palace. Pre¬ 
vious to 1822 Aleppo contained about 
100 mosques, but in that year an earth¬ 
quake laid the greater part of them in 
ruins, and destroyed nearly the whole city. 
The aqueduct built by the Romans is the 
oldest monument of the town. Among 
the chief attractions of Aleppo are its 
gardens, in which the pistachio-nut is 
extensively cultivated. Formerly the city 
was the center of a great import and ex¬ 
port trade, and its manufactures, con¬ 
sisting of shawls, cottons, silks, gold and 
silver lace, etc., were very valuable, but 
the earthquake already mentioned and 
various other causes have combined 
greatly to lessen its prosperity. It has 


defeat on the Gauls under Vercingetorix. 
It is now represented by the village of 
Alise, department Cote d’Or, near which 
Napoleon III erected a colossal statue of 
Vercingetorix in 1865. 

Alpccanrlria (al-es-san'dre-a), a town 

Aiessanana and fortress in North 

Italy, capital of the province of the same 
name, in a marshy country, near the 
junction of the Bormida and the Tanaro. 
It was built in 1168 by the Cremonese 
and Milanese, and was named in honor 
of Pope Alexander III, who made it a 
bishop’s see. It has a cathedral, im¬ 
portant manufactures of linen, woolen, 
and silk goods, and an active trade. It 
ranks as one of the first fortresses of 
Europe, the fortifications including a sur¬ 
rounding wall and bastions, and a strong 
citadel on the opposite side of the Tanaro, 
connected by a bridge with the town. 






Alessi 


Alexander 


Two miles distant is the battlefield of 
Marengo. Pop., exclusive of suburbs, 
71,298. 

AleSSi ( a 'l es,se )> Galeazzo, a distin¬ 
guished Italian architect, born 
at Perugia, 1512, died there in 1572. 
Many palaces, villas, and churches were 
erected after his designs. 

AletSCh ( a ' letcl G glacier, the greatest 
glacier in Switzerland, canton 
Vaud, a prolongation of the immense mass 
of glaciers connected with the Jungfrau, 
the Aletschhorn (14,000 ft.), and other 

i-ter), an in- 
for indicating 
the bread-making qualities of wheaten 
flour. The indications depend upon the 
expansion of the gluten contained in a 
given quantity of flour when freed of its 
starch by pulverization and repeated 
washings with water. 

Aleutian a “ ight * 

small islands belonging to the United 
States, and included in Alaska, separat¬ 
ing the Sea of Kamtchatka from the 
northern part of the Pacific Ocean, and 
extending nearly 1000 miles from east to 
west between Ion. 163° and 178° w.; 
total area, 6,391 square miles ; pop. 2,000. 
They are of volcanic formation, and in a 
number of them there are volcanoes still 
in activity. Their general appearance is 
dismal and barren, yet grassy valleys 
capable of supporting cattle throughout 
the year are met with, and potatoes, tur¬ 
nips, and other vegetables are successfully 
cultivated. They afford also an abun¬ 
dance of valuable fur and of fish. The 
natives, known as Aleuts, belong to the 
same stock as those of Kamtchatka. 
Alo'wifp (corruption of the Indian 
xxie wiic name), the Alosa tyrannus, 

a fish of the same genus as the shad, 
growing to the length of 12 inches, and 
taken in great quantities in the tidal 
waters of the rivers of New England, New 


peaks; about 13 miles long 

Aleurometer (a-iu-rom'c 

strument 


Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, being salted 
and exported. It occurs also farther 
south, is called spring herring in some 
places, and as an article of food is con¬ 
sidered in the United States much 
superior to the herring. 

Alpvavirlov (al-eks-an'der), surnamed 
/liexcuiuei t j ie Q rea f was the son of 

Philip of Macedon and his queen Olym¬ 
pias, and was born at Pella,. b.c. 356. 
In youth he had Aristotle as instructor, 
and he early displayed uncommon abili¬ 
ties. The victory of Chseronea in 338, 
which brought Greece entirely under 
Macedonia, was mainly decided by his 
efforts. Philip having been assassinated, 
B.c. 336, Alexander, not yet twenty years 


of age, ascended the throne. His father 
had been preparing an expedition against 
the Persians and Alexander determined 
to carry it out; but before doing so he 
had to chastise the 
barbarian tribes on 
the frontiers of 
Macedon as well 
as quell a rising 
in Greece, in which 
he took and de¬ 
stroyed Thebes, put 
6,000 of the in¬ 
habitants to the 
sword, and car¬ 
ried 30,000 into 
captivity. Leav- Coin of Alexander the 
ing Antipater to Great, 

govern in his stead in Europe, and being 
confirmed as commander-in-chief of the 
Greek forces in the general assembly of 
the Greeks, he crossed over the Hellespont 
into Asia, in the spring of 334, with 
30,000 foot and 5,000 horse. His first 
encounter with the Persian forces (as¬ 
sisted by Greek mercenaries) was at the 
small river Granicus, where he gained a 
complete victory. Most of the cities of 
Asia Minor now opened their gates to the 
victor, and Alexander restored democracy 
in all the Greek cities. In passing 
through Gordium he cut the Gordian 
knot, on which it was believed the fate 
of Asia depended, and then conquered 
Lycia, Ionia, Caria, Pamphylia, and Cap¬ 
padocia. A sickness, caused by bathing 
in the Cydnus (b.c. 333), checked his 
course; but scarcely was he restored to 
health when he continued his onward 
course, and this same year defeated the 
Persian emperor Darius and his army of 
500,0000 or 600,000 men (including 50,- 
000 Greek mercenaries) near Issus (inner 
angle of the Gulf of Alexandretta). 
Darius fled towards the interior of his 
dominions, leaving his family and treas¬ 
ures to fall into the hands of the con¬ 
queror. Alexander did not pursue Da¬ 
rius, but proceeded southwards, and 
secured all the towns along the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea, though he did not get posses¬ 
sion of Tyro (taken 332 b.c.) without 
a siege of seven months. Palestine and 
Egypt now fell before him, and in the 
latter he founded Alexandria, which be¬ 
came one of the first cities of ancient 
times. Thence he went through the 
desert of Libya to consult the oracle of 
Zeus Ammon, and it was said that the 
god recognized him as his son. On his 
return Alexander marched against Darius, 
who had collected an immense army in 
Assyria, and rejected the proposals of his 
rival for peace. A battle was fought at 
Gaugamela, about 50 miles from Arbela, 




Alexander 


Alexander 


b. c. 331, and notwithstanding the im¬ 
mense numerical superiority of his enemy, 
Alexander (who had but 40,000 men and 
7,000 horse) gained a complete victory. 
Babylon and Susa opened their gates to 
the conqueror, who marched towards 
Persepolis, the capital of Persia, and 
entered it in triumph. He now seems for 
a time to have lost his self-control. He 
gave himself up to arrogance and dissipa¬ 
tion, and is said in a fit of intoxication to 
have set fire to the palace of Persepolis, 
one of the wonders of the world. Rousing 
himself up, however, he set out in pursuit 
of Darius, who, having lost his throne, 
was kept prisoner by Bessus, satrap of 
Bactriana. Bessus, when he saw himself 
closely pursued, caused Darius to be 
assassinated (b.c. 330). Continuing his 
progress he subdued Bessus and advanced 
to the Jaxartes, the extreme eastern limit 
of the Persian empire, but did not fully 
subdue the whole of this region till 328, 
some fortresses holding out with great 
tenacity. In one of these he took prisoner 
the beautiful Roxana, daughter of 
Oxyartes, a nobleman of Sogdiana, and 
having fallen in love with her he married 
her. Meantime disaffection had once or 
twice manifested itself among his 
Macedonian followers and had been cruel¬ 
ly punished; and he had also, to his 
lasting remorse, killed his faithful friend 
Cleitus in a fit of drunken rage. Alexan¬ 
der now formed the idea of conquering 
India, then scarcely known even by name. 
He passed the Indus (b.c. 326), marched 
towards the Hydaspes (Jhelum), at the 
passage of which he conquered a king 
named Porus in a bloody battle, and ad¬ 
vanced victoriously through the northwest 
of India, and intended to proceed as far 
as the Ganges, when the murmurs of his 
army compelled him to return. On the 
Hydaspes he built a fleet, in which he 
sent a part of his army down the river, 
while the rest proceeded along the banks. 
By the Hydaspes he reached the Acesines 
(Chenab), and thus the Indus, down 
which he sailed to the sea. Nearchus, his 
admiral, sailed hence to the Persian Gulf, 
while Alexander directed his march by 
land to Babylon, losing a great part of 
his troops in the desert through which he 
had to pass. In Susa he married Statira, 
the eldest daughter of Darius, and re¬ 
warded those of his Macedonians who 
had married Persian women, because it 
was his intention to unite the two nations 
as closely as possible. At Opis, on the 
Tigris, a mutiny arose among his 
Macedonians (in 324), who thought he 
showed too much favor to the Asiatics. 
By firmness and policy he succeeded in 
quelling this rising, and sent home 10,000 


veterans with rich rewards. Soon 
after, his favorite, Hephsestion, died at 
Ecbatana, and Alexander’s grief was un¬ 
bounded. The favorite was royally 
buried at Babylon, and here Alexander 
was engaged in extensive plans for the 
future, when he became suddenly sick, 
after a banquet, and died in a few days 
(323 b.c. ), in his thirty-third year, after 
a reign of twelve years and eight months. 
His body was after a time conveyed to 
Egypt with great splendor by his general 
Ptolemy. He left behind him an immense 
empire, which was divided among his chief 
generals, and became the scene of con¬ 
tinual wars. The reign of Alexander 
constitutes an important period in the 
history of humanity. His career was 
not simply a series of empty conquests, 
but was attended with the most important 
results. The language, and much of the 
civilization of Greece, followed in his 
track; large additions were made to the 
sciences of geography, natural history, 
etc.; a road was opened to India ; and the 
products of the farthest east were intro¬ 
duced into Europe. Greek kingdoms, 
under his generals and their successors, 
continued to exist in Asia for centuries. 
AlpYcmrlpr the name of eight popes, 
9 the earliest of whom, 
Alexander I, is said to have reigned from 
109 to 119. The most famous (or noto¬ 
rious) is Alexander VI (Borgia), who 
was born at Valencia, in Spain, in 3431, 
and died in 1503. When he was only 
twenty-five years of age his uncle, Pope 
Calixtus III, made him a cardinal, and 
shortly afterwards appointed him to the 
dignified and lucrative office of vice- 
chancellor. He subsequently became 
Cardinal Bishop of Albano and in 1492, 
after the death of Innocent VIII, was 
elected Pope. As such he showed himself 
able and energetic, clearing Rome of 
the bandits who infested it and repressing 
the insolence and rapacity of the nobles, 
reformed the ecclesiastical discipline, sent 
many missionaries abroad and encouraged 
the arts, especially painting and liter¬ 
ature. In addition he put an end to the 
famines which had often desolated Rome, 
suppressed magic in Germany and Bo¬ 
hemia, and issued many notable bulls 
and other documents, the whole going to 
indicate remarkable mental power and 
activity. Several Italian and other his¬ 
torians have accused him of licentious¬ 
ness in his earlier career, and of simony, 
nepotism and cruelty as Pope, charges 
which it is difficult to reconcile with the 
high qualities manifested by him and his 
distinguished deeds. The accusations do 
not fit well with the known character of 
his career in the papal chair, and of 





Alexander 


Alexander II 


late years historians are inclined to doubt 
the serious accusations made against him. 
Not long after his election Alexander de¬ 
cided the disnute between Spain and 
Portugal concerning their claims to the 
new found countries beyond the ocean. 

A1 ayq n d er the name of three Scottish 

Alexander, kings Alexandeb If a 

son of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret of 
England, succeeded his brother Edgar in 
1107, and governed with great ability till 
his death in 1124. He was a great bene¬ 
factor of the church, and a firm vindicator 
of the national independence.— Alex¬ 
ander II was born in 1198, and succeeded 
his father William the Lion in 1214. He 
was a wise and energetic prince, and 
Scotland prospered greatly under him, 
though disturbed by the Norsemen, by the 
restlessness of some of the Celtic chiefs, 
and by the attempts of Henry III of Eng¬ 
land to make Alexander do homage to 
him. Alexander married Henry’s sister, 
Joan, in 1221, who lived till 1238. In 
1244 war with England almost broke out, 
but was fortunately averted. Alexander 
died in 1248 at Kerrera, an island op¬ 
posite Oban, when on an expedition in 
which he hoped to wrest the Hebrides 
from Norway. He was succeeded by his 
son, Alexander III, a boy of eight, who 
in 1251 married Margaret, eldest daughter 
of Henry III of England. Like his 
father he was eager to bring the Hebrides 
under his sway, and this he was enabled 
to accomplish in a few years after the 
defeat of the Norse King Haco at Largs, 
in 1263. The mainland and islands of 
Scotland were now under one sovereign, 
though Orkney and Shetland still be¬ 
longed to Norway. Alexander was stren¬ 
uous in asserting the independence both 
of the Scottish kingdom and the Scottish 
church against England. He died in 
1285 by the falling of his horse while he 
was riding in the dark between Burnt¬ 
island and Kinghorn. He left as his 
heiress Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, 
daughter of Eric of Norway, and of 
Alexander’s daughter, Margaret Under 
him Scotland enjoyed greater prosperity 
than for generations afterwards. 

A1 ayqT iHer T Emperor of Russia, 

Alexander ±, gon of Paul x and 

Maria, daughter of Prince Eugene of 
Wiirtemberg, was born in 1777, and died 
in 1825. On the assassination of his 
father, in 1801, Alexander ascended the 
throne, and one of his first acts was to 
conclude peace with Britain, against 
which his predecessor had declared war. 
In 1803 he offered his services as mediator 
between England and France, and two 
years later a convention was entered into 
between Russia, England, Austria, and 


Sweden for the purpose of resisting the 
encroachments of France on the territories 
of independent states. He was present 
at the battle of Austerlitz (1805), when 
the combined armies of Russia and Aus¬ 
tria were defeated by Napoleon. In the 
succeeding campaign the Russians were 
again beaten at Eylau (8th February, 
1807), and Friedland (14th June), the 
result of which was an interview be¬ 
tween Alexander and Napoleon and the 
treaty at Tilsit. The Russian emperor 
now for a time identified himself with the 
Napoleonic schemes, and soon obtained 
possession of Finland and an extended 
territory on the Danube. The French 
alliance, however, he found to be too op¬ 
pressive, and his having separated him¬ 
self from Napoleon led to the French 
invasion of Russia in 1812, with its dis¬ 
astrous results to Napoleon. In 1813 he 
published a manifesto which served as the 
basis of the coalition of the other Euro¬ 
pean powers against France, which was 
followed by the capture of Paris (in 
1814), the abdication of Napoleon and the 
restoration of the Bourbons, and the utter 
overthrow of Napoleon the following year. 
After Waterloo, Alexander, accompanied 
by the Emperor of Austria and the King 
of Prussia, made his second entrance into 
Paris, where they concluded the treaty 
known as the Holy Alliance. The re¬ 
maining part of his reign was chiefly 
taken up in measures of internal reform, 
including the gradual abolition of serfdom, 
and the promotion of education, agricul¬ 
ture, commerce, and manufactures, as well 
as literature and the fine arts. 

Alexander II, “ipdill; 

1818, and succeeded his father, Nicholas, 
in 1855, before the end of the Crimean war. 
After peace was concluded the new 
emperor set about effecting reforms in the 
empire, the greatest of all being the 
emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a 
measure which gave freedom, on certain 
conditions, to 22,000,000 of human beings 
who were previously in a state little re¬ 
moved from that of slavery. Under him, 
too, representative assemblies in the 
provinces were introduced, and he also did 
much to improve education, and to reor¬ 
ganize the judicial system. During his 
reign the Russian dominions in Central 
Asia were extended, a piece of territory 
south of the Caucasus, formerly belong¬ 
ing to Turkey, was acquired, and a part 
of Bessarabia, belonging since the Cri¬ 
mean war to Turkey in Europe, but pre¬ 
viously to Russia, was restored to the 
latter power. The latter additions re¬ 
sulted from the Russo-Turkish war of 
1877-78. He was killed by an explosive 



Alexander I 


Alexandria 


missile flung at him (by a Nihilist it is 
supposed) in a street in St. Petersburg, 
13th March, 1881. He was succeeded by 
his second son, Alexander III, who had 
taken an active command in the war with 
Turkey in 1877—78. After a reign filled 
with perpetual fear of assassination, he 
died of disease in 1894. 

Alexander I 

ceeded to the throne on the abdication of 
his father, King Milan. March 6, 1889. 
A regency was established which ended 
in 1893. Dissatisfaction arising he was 
killed by army officers during an insur¬ 
rection June 11, 1903. Succeeded by 
Peter I. 

Alexander of Hales. ^leSnS 

DE. 

Alexander Nevskoi <“ n 0i > ier a o 

and saint, son of the Grand-duke Jaroslav, 
born in 1219, died in 1263. He fought 
valiantly against assaults of the Mongols, 
the Danes, Swedes, and knights of the 
Teutonic Order. He gained the name of 
Nevskoi in 1240, for a splendid victory, 
on the Neva, over the Swedes. The 
gratitude of his countrymen commem¬ 
orated the hero in popular songs, and 
raised him to the dignity of a saint. 
Peter the Great built a splendid 
monastery at St. Petersburg in his honor, 
and in memory of him established the 
order of Alexander Nevskoi. 

Alexander Severus ( Ro^n US) ’ em a - 

peror, born in 205, died 235 a.d. He 
was raised to the imperial dignity in 222 
a.d. by the praetorian guards, after they 
had put his cousin, the emperor Heliogab- 
alus, to death. He governed ably both 
in peace and war; and also occupied him¬ 
self in poetry, philosophy, and literature. 
In 232 he defeated the Persians under 
Artaxerxes, who wished to drive the 
Romans from Asia. When on an expedi¬ 
tion into Gaul to repress an incursion of 
the Germans, he was murdered with his 
mother in an insurrection of his troops, 
headed by the brutal Maximin, who suc¬ 
ceeded him as emperor. 

AlpYandprsi (Smyrnium olusatrum), 

xiicAcuiuci a aQ umbelliferous bienn iai 

plant, a native of Britain, formerly culti¬ 
vated for its leafstalks, which, having a 
pleasant aromatic flavor, were blanched 
and used instead of celery—a vegetable 
that has taken its place. 

Alexandret'ta, ° r .iskanderoon 

’ (ancient Alexan¬ 
dria ad Issum), a small seaport in Asia 
Minor, on the Gulf of Iskanderoon, the 
port of Aleppo and Northern Syria. 


Named after Alexander the Great, at 
whose command it was founded in 
memory of the battle of Issus. Pop. about 
7,000. 

Alexandria (al-eks-an'dri-a), an an- 
iiiexdnuild cient city and seaport in 

Egypt, at the northwest angle of the 
Nile delta, on a ridge of land between the 
sea and Lake Mareotis. Ancient Alexan¬ 
dria was founded by, and named in honor 
of, Alexander the Great, in b.c. 332, and 
was long a great and splendid city, the 
center of commerce between the east and 
west, as well as of Greek learning and 
civilization, with a population at one 
time of perhaps 1,000,000. It was 
especially celebrated for its great library, 
and also for its famous lighthouse, one 
of the wonders of the world, standing 
upon the little island of Pharos, which 
was connected with the city by a mole. 
Under Roman rule it was the second city 
of the empire, and when Constantinople 
became the capital of the East it still 
remained the chief center of trade; 
but it received a blow from which 
it never recovered when captured by 
Amru, general of Caliph Omar in 641, 
after a siege of fourteen months. Its 
ruin was finally completed by the dis¬ 
covery of the passage to India by the 
Cape of Good Hope, which opened up a 
new route for the Asiatic trade. See 
Alexandrian Library, Alexandrian School. 
—Modern Alexandria stands partly on 
what was formerly the island of Pharos, 
partly on the peninsula which now con¬ 
nects it with the mainland and has been 
formed by the accumulation of soil, and 
partly on the mainland. The streets in 
the Turkish quarter are narrow, dirty, 
and irregular; in the foreign quarter they 
are regular and wide, and it is here that 
the finest houses are situated, and where 
are the principal shops and hotels, banks, 
offices of companies, etc.; this part of the 
city being also supplied with gas, and 
with water brought by the Mahmudieh 
Canal from the western branch of the 
Nile. Alexandria is connected by railway 
with Cairo, Rosetta, and Suez. A little 
to the south of the city are the catacombs, 
which now serve as a quarry. Another 
relic of antiquity is Pompey’s Pillar, 98 
ft. 9 in. high. Alexandria has two ports, 
on the east and west respectively of the 
isthmus of the Pharos peninsula, the 
latter having a breakwater over 3,000 
yards in length, with fine quays and 
suitable railway and other accommoda¬ 
tion. The trade of Alexandria is large 
and varied, the exports being cotton, 
beans, peas, rice, wheat, etc.; the im¬ 
ports chiefly manufactured goods. At 
the beginning of the century Alexandria 



Alexandria 


Alexandrian Library 


was an insignificant place of 5,000 or 
6,000 inhabitants. The origin of its 
more recent career of prosperity it owes 
to Mohammed Ali. In 1882 the insurrec¬ 
tion of Arabi Pasha and the massacre of 
Europeans led to the intervention of the 
British, and the bombardment of the 
forts by the British fleet in July. When 
the British entered the city they found 
the finest parts of it sacked and in 
flames; it is now handsomely rebuilt. 
Pop. (1907) 332,246. 

AlpYQYirlria a city of Madison Co., 

Alexandria, Indiana> n miles N of 

Anderson. It has manufactures of 
plate glass, lamp chimneys and mineral 


AlPYonrlvia a town of Scotland, in 
Alexandria, Dumbartonshire, on the 

Leven, 4 miles north of Dumbarton, with 
extensive cotton printing and bleaching 
works. Pop. 8,000. 

Alexandria, * «° wn of Southern 
7 Kussia, government of 
Cherson. Pop. 14,000. 

Alexandrian Library,^ la ^st 


famous of all the ancient collections of 
books, founded by Ptolemy Soter (died 283 
b.c.), king of Egypt, and greatly enlarged 
by succeeding Ptolemies. At its most 
flourishing period it is said to have num¬ 
bered 700,000 volumes, accommodated in 



wool, and is in a natural gas region. 
Pop. 5,096. 

Alexandria, Lpi&f’pa.Sf lui£ 

ana, on the s. bank of Red River, 200 
miles from its mouth. The river is 
navigable at all seasons, and there is a 
trade in cotton, rice, fruits and sugar, 
also brickyards, oil mill, saw mills, etc. 
The University of Louisiana, formerlv 
here, was burned in 1869. Pop. 11,213. 

Alexandria, a . c . i1; y and p° rt of Vir - 

7 ginia, on the w. bank 
of the Potomac River. 6 miles below 
Y as hington. The river here is more 
than a mile wide and deep enough for 
the largest ships. There are chemical 
works and manufactures of shoes, furni¬ 
ture, glass, machinery, etc. Pop. 15,329. 


two different buildings, one of them being 
the Serapeion, or temple of Jupiter 
Serapis. The other collection was burned 
during Julius Caesar’s siege of the city, 
but the Serapeion library existed to the 
time of the Emperor Theodosius the 
Great, when, at the general destruction of 
the heathen temples, the splendid temple 
of Jupiter Serapis was gutted (a.d. 391) 
by a fanatical crowd of Christians, and 
its literary treasures destroyed or scat¬ 
tered. A library was again accumu¬ 
lated, but is said to have been burned 
by the Arabs when they captured the city 
under the caliph Omar in 641. Amru. 
the captain of the caliph’s army, would 
have been willing to spare the library, but 
Omar is said to have disposed of the 
matter in the famous words: ‘ If these 










Alexandrian School 


Alexis Petrovitch 


writings of the Greeks agree with the 
Koran they are useless, and need not be 
preserved; if they disagree they are 
pernicious, and ought to be destroyed. ’ 
It is probable, however, that little of the 
library then remained to be destroyed. 

Alexandrian School, £ 

riod of Greek literature and learning 
that existed at Alexandria in Egypt dur¬ 
ing the three hundred years that the rule 
of the Ptolemies lasted (323-30 B.C.). 
and continued under the Roman suprem¬ 
acy. Ptolemy Soter founded the famous 
library of Alexandria (see above) and his 
son, Philadelphus, established a kind of 
academy of sciences and arts. Many 
scholars and men of genius were thus 
attracted to Alexandria, and a period of 
literary activity set in, which made 
Alexandria for long the focus and center 
of Greek culture and intellectual effort. 
It must be admitted, however, that 
originality was not a characteristic of the 
Alexandrian age, which was stronger in 
criticism, grammar, and science than in 
pure literature. Among the grammarians 
and critics were Zenodotus, Eratosthenes, 
Aristophanes, Aristarchus, and Zoilus, 
proverbial as a captious critic. Their 
merit is to have collected, edited, and 
preserved the existing monuments of 
Greek literature. To the poets belong 
Apollonius, Lycophron, Aratus, Nicander, 
Euphorion, Callimachus, Theocritus, 
Philetas, etc. Among those who pursued 
mathematics, physics, and astronomy was 
Euclid, the father of scientific geometry ; 
Archimedes, great in physics and me¬ 
chanics ; Apollonius of Perga, whose work 
on conic sections still exists; Nicomachus, 
the first scientific arithmetician; and 
(under the Romans) the astronomer and 
geographer Ptolemy. Alexandria also 
was distinguished in philosophical specu¬ 
lation, and it was here that the New 
Platonic school was established at the 
close of the second century after Christ 
by Ammonius of Alexandria (about 193 
a.d.), whose disciples were Plotinus and 
Origen. Being for the most part 
orientals, formed by the study of Greek 
learning, the writings of the New 
Platonists are strikingly characterized— 
for example, those of Ammonius Saccas, 
Plotinus, Iamblicus, Porphyrius—by a 
mixture of Asiatic and European ele¬ 
ments. The principal Gnostic systems 
also had their origin in Alexandria. 

Alexandrian Version, °/ T 

A L lii X. A IN" 

drinus, a manuscript in the British 
Museum, of great importance in Biblical 
criticism, written on parchment with 
uncial letters, and belonging probably to 


the latter half of the sixth century. It 
contains the whole Greek Bible (the Old 
Testament being according to the Sep- 
tuagint), together with the letters of 
Bishop Clement of Rome, but it wants 
parts of Matthew, John, and Second 
Corinthians. The Patriarch of Constanti¬ 
nople, who in 1G28 sent this manuscript 
as a present to Charles I, said he had 
received it from Egypt (whence its 
name). 

Alexandrine g* 

en, from an old French poem on Alexan¬ 
der the Great, to a species of verse, which 
consists of six iambic feet, or twelve syl¬ 
lables, the pause being, in correct Alexan¬ 
drines, always on the sixth syllable; for 
example, the second of the following 
verses:— 

A needless Alexandrine ends the song, 

Which, like a wounded snake, drags its slow 
length along. 


In English, Drayton’s Polyolbion is writ¬ 
ten in this measure, and the concluding 
line of the Spenserian stanza is an Alex¬ 
andrine. The French in their epics and 
dramas are confined to this verse, which 
for this reason is called by them the 
heroic. 


AlexandropolW^'p'J). ? ort “ 

the Transcaucasian government of 
Erivan, near the highway from Erivan to 
Kars; can accommodate 10,000 military, 
and has silk manufactures. Pop. 32,018. 
A1 pyq vi'(\^ town of Russia, 

Aiexan arov, government of Vladi _ 

mir, with a famous convent, in the church 

of which are interred two sisters of Peter 

the Great; manufactures of steel and 

cotton goods. In the neighborhood is an 

imperial stud. Pop. 6,848. 

AlpYlVhaH (a-leks'is-bad), a bathing 
xiiCAiaudu p]ace of Germany) Anhalt 

in the Harz Mountains, with two mineral 
springs strongly impregnated with iron. 

Alexis Michai'lovitch (a-ieks'is; 

the son of 

Michael), second Russian czar of the line 
of Romanof (the present dynasty), born 
in 1629, succeeded his father Michael 
Feodorovitch in 1645, and died in 1676. 
He did much for the internal administra¬ 
tion and for the enlargement of the em¬ 
pire ; reconquered Little Russia from 
Poland, and carried his authority to the 
extreme east of Siberia. He was father 
of Peter the Great. 


Alexis Petro'vitch. « ld . est s™ of 

’ Peter the Great, 
was born in Moscow, 1690, and died in 
1718. He opposed the innovations intro¬ 
duced by his father, who on this account 
















































































































































































THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE DESERT 


ALFALFA 

On the left of the fence in the upper view is seen the sage brush desert, and on the right, fields of alfalfa. 
The transformation is due to irrigation. The iower view shows a stack of alfalfa hay, representing two cut¬ 
tings, from sixteen acres of irrigated land. Size of stack: 5i>i feet long, 20 feet wide, 35 feet high. 

V. eight, 75 tons. 







Alexius Comnenus 


Alfred 


disinherited him by a ukase in 1718, and 
when he discovered that Alexis was pav¬ 
ing the way to succeed to the crown he 
had his son tried and condemned to death. 
He was found dead in prison a few days 
later, the cause of his death not known. 
He left a son, afterwards the emperor 
Peter II. 

Alexius Comne'nus a ( a ' le ^''“ I f ti ) u ’ 

emperor, was born in 1048, and died in 
1118. He was a nephew of Isaac, the 
first emperor of the Comneni, and at¬ 
tained the throne in 1081, at a time when 
the empire was menaced from various 
sides, especially by the Turks and the 
Normans. From these dangers, as well 
as from later ones (caused by the First 
Crusade, the Normans, and the Turks), 
he managed to extricate himself by policy 
or warlike measures, and maintained his 
position till the age of seventy, during a 
reign of thirty-seven years. 

Al'fa a name for esparto grass or a 
■ n " L ’variety of it, largely obtained 
from Algeria. See Esparto. 

Alfalfa (al-fal'fa)* a prolific forage 
xxxxax a. p i ant s i m ii ar to lucerne, large¬ 
ly grown in the western and Pacific 
States, especially in Kansas and Ne¬ 
braska and now being introduced through¬ 
out the United States, its very deep 
rooting enabling it to flourish in soil 
arid to other grasses. It is also grown 
in parts of Spanish America. Heavy 
crops are gathered three or four times 
a season. See Lucerne. 


AlfaraUi (&l-fa-ra'be), an eminent 
aiidltlUA Arabian scholar of the tenth 
century ; died at Damascus in 950; wrote 
on the Aristotelian philosophy, and com¬ 
piled a kind of encyclopedia. 

AFfenid an a ^°y nickel plated with 

silver, used for spoons, forks, 
candlesticks, tea services, etc. 

Alfieri ( a l' f e-a're), Vittorio, Count, 
1 Italian poet, was born at Asti 
in 1749, and died in 1803. After exten¬ 
sive European travels he began to write, 
and his first play, Cleopatra (1775), 
being received with general applause, he 
determined to devote all his efforts to 
attaining a position among writers of 
dramatic poetry. At Florence he became 
intimate with the Countess of Albany, 
wife of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 
and on the death of the prince she lived 
with him as his mistress. This connec¬ 
tion he believed to have served to stim¬ 
ulate and elevate his poetic powers. He 
died at Florence and was buried in the 
church of Santa Croce, between Mac- 
chiavelli and Michael Angelo, where a 
beautiful monument by Canova covers his 
remains. He wrote twenty-one tragedies 


and six comedies. His tragedies are full 
of lofty and patriotic sentiments, but the 
language is stiff and without poetic grace, 
and the plots poor. Nevertheless he is 
considered the first tragic writer of Italy, 
and has served as a model for his succes¬ 
sors. Alfieri composed also an epic, 
lyrics, satires, and poetical translations 
from the ancient classics. He left an 
interesting autobiography. 

Alfon'so. See Alphonso. 

Al'fnrrt Henry, Dean of Canterbury, 
’ an English poet, scholar 
and miscellaneous writer, was born in 
London in 1810. After attending various 
schools he graduated from Cambridge and 
in 1835 became vicar of Wymeswold, 
Leicestershire. In 1842 he was appointed 
examiner in logic and moral philosophy to 
the University of London, and held the 
appointment till 1857. He early began 
the great work of his life, his edition of 
the Greek Testament with commentary, 
which occupied him for twenty years, the 
first volume being published in 1849, the 
fourth and last in 1861. In 1853 he was 
translated to Quebec Chapel, London, and 
in 1857 he was appointed Dean of Can¬ 
terbury. He died in 1871. 

Al'frprl (or ^El'fred) the Great, King 
lieu of Englandf one of the most 

illustrious xulers on record, was born at 
Wantage, in Berkshire, a.d. 849, his 
father being Ethelwolf, son of Egbert, 
King of the West Saxons. He succeeded 
his brother Ethelred in 872, at a time 
when the Danes, or Northmen, had ex¬ 
tended their conquests widely over the 
country, and they had completely over¬ 
run the kingdom of the West Saxons by 
878. Alfred was obliged to flee in dis¬ 
guise, and stayed for some time with one 
of his own neat-herds. At length he 
gathered a small force, and having forti¬ 
fied himself on the Isle of Athelney, 
formed by the confluence of the rivers 
Parret and Tone, amid the marshes of 
Somerset, he was able to make frequent 
sallies against the enemy. It was during 
his abode here that he went, if the story 
is true, disguised as a harper into the 
camp of King Guthrum (or Guthorm), 
and, having ascertained that the Danes 
felt themselves secure, hastened back to 
his troops, led them against the enemy, 
and gained such a decided victory that 
fourteen days afterwards the Danes 
begged for peace. This battle took place 
in May, 878, near Edington, in Wiltshire. 
Alfred allowed the Danes who were al¬ 
ready in the country to remain, on con¬ 
dition that they gave hostages, took a 
solemn oath to ouit Wessex, and embraced 
Christianity. Their king, Guthrum, was 



Algebra 


Algae 


baptized, with thirty of his followers, and 
afterwards remained faithful to Alfred. 
They received that portion of the east of 
England now occupied by the counties of 
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge, as a 
place of residence. The few years of 
tranquillity (886-893) which followed 
were employed by Alfred in rebuilding the 
towns that had suffered most during the 
war, particularly London; in training his 
people in arms and no less in agriculture; 
in improving the navy: in systematizing 
the laws and internal administration; and 
in literary labors and the advancement of 
learning. He caused many manuscripts 
to be translated from Latin, and himself 
translated several works into Anglo- 
Saxon, such as the Psalms, /Esop's 
Fables, Boethius on the Consolation of 
Philosophy, the History of Orosius, 
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, etc. He 
also drew up several original works in 
Anglo-Saxon. These peaceful labors were 
interrupted, about 894, by an invasion of 
the Northmen, who, after a struggle of 
three years, were finally driven out. 
Alfred died in 901. He had married, in 
868 , Alswith or Ealhswith, the daughter 
of a Mercian nobleman, and left two 
sons. Edward, who succeeded him. and 
Ethelwerd, who died in 922. Alfred 
presents us with one of the most perfect 
examples of the able and patriotic 
monarch united with the virtuous 
man. 

Aljrgg (al'je), a nat. order of crypto- 
° gamic or thallogenous plants, 
found for the most part in the sea and 
fresh water, and comprising sea-weeds, 
etc. The higher forms have stems bear¬ 
ing leaf-like expansions, and they are 
often attached to the rocks by roots, 
which, however, do not derive nutriment 
from the rocks. A stem, however, is most 
frequently absent. The plants are nour¬ 
ished through their whole surface by the 
medium in which they live. They vary 
in size from microscopic diatoms to 
forms whose stems resemble those of 
forest trees, and whose fronds rival the 
leaves of the palm. They are entirely 
composed of cellular tissue, and many 
are edible and nutritious, as carrageen 
or Irish moss, dulse, etc. Kelp, iodine, 
and. bromine are products of various 
species. The Algae are also valuable as 
manure. They are often divided into five 
orders :—Diatomacea, Confervaceae, Fuca- 
ceae, Ceramiaceae, and Characeae. 
AlfTardi (M-gar'de), Alessandro, one 
° of the chief Italian sculptors 

of the seventeenth century; born 1602, 
died 1654. He lived and worked chiefly 
at Rome; executed the tomb of Leo XI 
in St. Peter’s, and a marble relief with 


life-size figures over the altar of St. Leo 
there. 

Algaro'ba bean. See Carob-tree. 

Alp’arohilla (al-gar- 0 -bil'la), the 
iiig di u umd seed _ pods of one or two 

South American trees (genus Prosopis ), 
valuable as containing much tannin. 
Al^arot ( al 'g a_rot ), a violently purga- 
o tive and emetic white powder, 

precipitated from chloride of antimony in 
water; formerly used in medicine. 
Alcrarntti (al-ga-rot'te), Francesco, 

iiigaroiu CouNT born in 1712 , die d 

in 1764, an Italian writer on science, the 
fine arts, etc. He lived for some years 
in France and for a long time in Ger¬ 
many, Frederick the Great of Prussia hav¬ 
ing made him chamberlain and count. 
He wrote Newtonianism for the Ladies; 
Essays on the Fine Arts; poems, letters, 
etc. 

Algarve ( al -g ar '™). a maritime prov- 
ig<x ^ j nce 0 £ p or tugal occupying 

the southern portion of the republic; 
mountainous but with some fertile tracts. 
Area, 1,872 square miles; pop. 254,851. 
AlcaU ( a ^^ ou )» a name for the south- 
® western portion of Bavaria and 
the adjacent parts of Wiirtemberg and 
Tyrol, intersected by the Algau Alps. 
The Algau breed of cattle is one of the 
best in Germany. 

Alcazzali {al-g&z-a'le), Abu IIamed 
® Mohammed, an Arabian 

philosopher, Persian by birth ; born 1058, 
died 1111. He was a most prolific author ; 
an_ opponent of the prevailing Aristotelian 
philosophy of the day, and wrote against 
it the Destruction of the Philosophers, 
answered by Averroes in his Destruction 
of the Destruction. 

Alcebra ( al 'Je-bra), a kind .of gen- 
® eralized arithmetic, in which 

numbers or quantities and operations, 
often also the results of operations, are 
represented by symbols. Thus the ex¬ 
pression xy+cz+dy 2 denotes that a num¬ 
ber represented by x is to be multiplied 
by a number represented by y, a number 
c multiplied by a number z, a number d 
by a number y multiplied by itself (or 
squared), and the sum taken of these 
three products. So the equation (as it 
is called). x 2 - 7a?+12=0 expresses the 
fact that if a certain number x is mul¬ 
tiplied by itself, and this result made less 
by seven times the number and greater by 
twelve, # the result is 0. In this case x 
must either be 3 or 4 to produce the given 
result; but such an equation (or for¬ 
mula) as (a + 6) {a-b)=a 2 -b 2 is al¬ 
ways true whatever values may be as¬ 
signed to a and b. Algebra is an invalu¬ 
able instrument in intricate calculations 




Algebra 


Algeria 


of all kinds, and enables operations to be 
performed and results obtained that by 
arithmetic would be impossible, and its 
scope is still being extended. 

The beginnings of algebraic method are 
to be found in Diophantus, a Greek of the 
fourth century of our era, but it was the 
Arabians that introduced algebra to Eu¬ 
rope, and from them it received its name. 
The first Arabian treatise on algebra was 
published in the reign of the great Kaliph 
A1 Mamun (813-833) by Mohammed 
Ben Musa. In 1202 Leonardo Fibonacci 
of Pisa, who had traveled and studied in 
the East, published a work treating of 
algebra as then understood in the Arabian 
school. From this time to the discovery 
of printing considerable attention was 
given to algebra, and the work of Ben 
Musa and another Arabian treatise, called 
the Rule of Algebra, were translated into 
Italian. The first printed work treating 
on algebra (also on arithmetic, etc.) ap¬ 
peared at Venice in 1494, the author 
being a monk called Luca Pacioli da 
Bergo. Rapid progress now began to be 
made, and among the names of those to 
whom advances are to be attributed are 
Tartaglia and Cardan. About the middle 
of the sixteenth century the German 
Stifel introduced the signs +, -, Vi and 
Recorde the sign =. Recorde wrote the 
first English work on algebra. Francois 
Vieta, a French mathematician (1540- 
1603), first adopted the method which 
has led to so great an extension of modern 
algebra, by being the first who used gen¬ 
eral symbols for known quantities as well 
as for unknown. It was he also who first 
made the application of algebra to geom¬ 
etry. Albert Girard extended the theory 
of equations by the supposition of 
imaginary quantities. The Englishman 
Harriot, early in the seventeenth century, 
discovered negative roots, and established 
the equality between the number of roots 
and the units in the degree of the equa¬ 
tion. He also invented the signs < >, 

and Oughthred that of X. Descartes, 
though not the first to apply algebra to 
geometry, has, by the extent and impor¬ 
tance of his applications, commonly ac¬ 
quired the credit of being so. The same 
discoveries have also been attributed to 
him as to Harriot, and their respective 
claims have caused much controversy. 
He obtained by means of algebra the 
definition and description of curves. 
Since his time algebra has been applied 
so widely in geometry and higher, mathe¬ 
matics that we need only mention the 
names of Fermat, Wallis, Newton, Leib¬ 
nitz, De Moivre, MacLaurin, Taylor, 
Euler. d’Alembert, Lagrange, Laplace, 
Fourier, Poisson, Gauss, Horner, de 


Morgan, Sylvester, Cayley, Boole, Je- 
vons, and others who have applied the 
algebraic method not only to formal logic 
but to political economy. 

Ateeciras ( a l'^e-the'ras), a seaport 
& of Spain, on the west side 

of the Bay of Gibraltar, a well-built town 
carrying on a brisk coasting trade. It 
was the first conquest of the Arabs in 
Spain (711), and was held by them till 
1344, when it was taken by Alphonso XI 
of Castile after a siege of twenty months. 
Near Algeciras, in July, 1801, the Eng¬ 
lish defeated the French and Spanish 
fleets. A conference was held here in 
1906 to settle the dispute between France 
and Germany about Morocco. Pop. 
13,302. 

Alg-er (al'jer). Russell A., soldier 
and statesman, born at Lafay¬ 
ette, Ohio, 1836. After admission to the 
bar he entered the army as a private in 
1861 and served through the war, rising to 
the rank of brevet-major-general of volun¬ 
teers. Engaging in business in Michigan, 
he became governor of that State in 1885. 
and in 1897 was appointed Secretary of 
War by President McKinley. He resigned 
in 1899, having been severely criticised 
for his management of. army affairs 
during the Spanish-American war. He 
was appointed United States Senator in 
1902 to fill a vacancy and elected 1903. 
Died January 24, 1907. 

Al'p-er William Rounsville., author 
o ’ and clergyman; born in. Free¬ 
town. Massachusetts, in 1823, died in 
1905. He succeeded Theodore Parker 
as pastor of the Society of Liberal Chris¬ 
tians in Boston in 1855, and was min¬ 
ister of the Unitarian Church of the 
Messiah in New York 1876-78. He 
wrote Symbolic History of the Cross of 
Christ; Oriental Poetry; Sources of Con¬ 
solation in Human Life , and other 
works. 

Alcrprifl (al-je'ri-a), a French colony 
o in North Africa, having on 

the north the Mediterranean, on the east 
Tunis, on the west Morocco, and on the 
south (where the boundary is ill-defined) 
the desert of Sahara; area, exclusive of 
the Algerian Sahara. 176,800 sq. miles. 
The country is divided into three depart¬ 
ments—Algiers, Oran, and Constantine. 
The coast-line is, about 550 miles in 
length, steep and rocky, and though the 
indentations are numerous the harbors 
are much exposed to the north wind. The 
country is traversed by the Atlas Moun¬ 
tains, two chains of which—the Great 
Atlas, bordering on the Sahara, and the 
Little, or Maritime Atlas, between it and 
the sea—run parallel to the coast, the 
former attaining a height of 7,000 feet. 



Algeria 


Algeria 


The intervals are filled with lower ranges, 
and numerous transverse ranges connect 
the principal ones and run from them to 
the coast, forming elevated tablelands 
and inclosed valleys. The rivers are 
numerous, but many of them are mere 
torrents rising in the mountains near the 
coast. The Shelif is much the largest. 
Some of the rivers are largely used for 
irrigation, and artesian wells have been 
sunk in some places for the same pur¬ 
pose. There are, both on the coast and 
in the interior, extensive salt lakes or 
marshes ( Shotts ), which dry up to a 
great extent in summer. The country 
bordering on the coast, called the Tell, js 
generally hilly, with fertile valleys; in 
some places a flat and fertile plain ex¬ 
tends between the hills and the sea. In 
the east there are Shotts that sink below 
the sea-level, and into these it has been 
proposed to introduce the waters of the 
Mediterranean. The climate varies con¬ 
siderably according to elevation and local 
peculiarities. There are three seasons: 
winter from November to February, 
spring from March to June, and summer 
from July to October. The summer is 
very hot and dry. In many parts of the 
coast the temperature is moderate and the 
climate so healthy that Algeria is now a 
winter resort for invalids. 

The chief products of cultivation are 
wheat, barley, and oats, tobacco, cotton, 
vrine, silk, and dates. Early vegetables, 
especially potatoes and peas, are ex¬ 
ported to France and England. A fiber 
called alfa, a variety of esparto, which 
grows wild on the high plateaus, is ex¬ 
ported in large quantities. Cork is also 
exported. There are valuable forests, in 
which grow various sorts of pines and 
oaks, ash, cedar, myrtle, pistachio-nut, 
mastic, carob, etc. The Australian Eu¬ 
calyptus globulus (a gum-tree) has been 
successfully introduced. Agriculture often 
suffers much from the ravages of locusts. 
Among wild animals are the lion, panther, 
hyena, and jackal; the domestic quad¬ 
rupeds include the horse, the mule, cattle, 
sheep, and pigs (introduced by the 
French). Algeria possesses valuable 
minerals, including iron, copper, lead, sul¬ 
phur, zinc, antimony, marble (white and 
red), and lithographic stone. 

The trade of Algeria has greatly in¬ 
creased under French rule, France, Spain, 
and England being the countries with 
which it is principally carried on, and 
three-fourths of the whole being with 
France. The exports (besides those men¬ 
tioned above) are olive-oil, raw hides, 
wood, wool, tobacco, oranges, etc.:. the 
imports, manufactured goods, wdnes, 
spirits, coffee, etc. The manufacturing 


industries are unimportant, and include 
morocco leather, carpets, muslins, and 
silks. French money, weights, and meas¬ 
ures are generally used. The chief towns 
are Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Bona, 
and Tlemgen. 

The tw r o principal native races inhabit¬ 
ing Algeria are Arabs and Berbers. The 
former are mostly nomads, dwelling in 
tents and wandering from place to place, 
though a large number of them are settled 
in the Tell, where they carry on agricul¬ 
ture and have formed numerous villages. 
The Berbers, here called Kabyles, are 
the original inhabitants of the territory 
and still form a considerable part of the 
population. They speak the Berber lan¬ 
guage, but use Arabic characters in writ¬ 
ing. The Jews form a small but influen¬ 
tial part of the population. Various 
other races also exist. Except the Jews 
all the native races are Mohammedans. 
There are now a considerable number of 
French and other colonists, provision 
being made for granting them concessions 
of land on certain conditions. There are 
over 360,000 colonists of French origin 
in Algeria, and over 200,000 colonists 
natives of other European countries 
(chiefly Spaniards and Italians). Al¬ 
geria is governed by a governor-general, 
who is assisted by a council appointed by 
the French government. The settled por¬ 
tion of the country, in the three depart¬ 
ments of Algiers, Constantine, and Oran, 
is treated much as if it were a part of 
France, and each department sends two 
deputies and one senator to the French 
chambers. Population 4,774,042. 

The country now called Algeria was 
known to the Romans as Numidia. It 
flourished greatly under their rule, and 
early received the Christian religion. It 
was conquered by the Vandals in 430- 
431 a.d., and recovered by Belisarius for 
the Byzantine Empire in 533-534. About 
the middle of the seventh century it was 
overrun by the Saracens. The town of 
Algiers was founded about 935 by Yussef 
Ibn Zeiri, and the country was sub¬ 
sequently ruled by his successors and the 
dynasties of the Almoravides and Almo- 
hades. After the overthrow of the latter, 
about 1269, it broke up into a number of 
small independent territories. The Moors 
and Jews who were driven out of Spain 
by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of 
the fifteenth century settled in large num¬ 
bers in Algeria, and revenged themselves 
on their persecutors by the practice of 
piracy. On this account various expedi¬ 
tions were made by Spain against Algeria, 
and by 1510 the greater part of the coun¬ 
try was made tributary. A few years 
later the Algerians invited to their assis- 



Algeria 


Algiers 


tanc-e the Turkish pirate Horush (or 
Haruj) Barbarossa, who made himself 
Sultan of Algiers in 1516, but was not 
long in being taken by the Spaniards and 
beheaded. His brother and successor put 
Algiers under the protection of Turkey 
(about 1520). and organized the system 
of piracy which was long the terror of 
European commerce, and was never 
wholly suppressed till the French occupa¬ 
tion. Henceforth the country belonged 
to the Turkish empire, though from 
1710 the connection was little more than 
nominal. The depredations of the Al¬ 
gerian pirates were a continual source of 
irritation to the Christian powers, who 
sent a long series of expeditions against 
them. For instance, in 1815 a United 
States fleet under Admiral Decatur de¬ 
feated an Algerian one and forced the 
dey to agree to a peace in which he 
recognized the American flag as in¬ 
violable. In 1816 Lord Exmouth with 
an English fleet bombarded Algiers, and 
exacted a treaty by which all the Chris¬ 
tian slaves were at once released, and the 
dey undertook for the future to treat all 
his prisoners of war as the European law 
of nations demanded. But the piratical 
practices of the Algerians were soon re¬ 
newed. 

At last the French determined on more 
vigorous measures, and in 1830 sent a 
force of over 40,000 men against the 
country. Algiers was speedily occupied, 
the dey retired, and the country was with¬ 
out a government, but resistance was or¬ 
ganized by Abd-el-Kader, an Arab chief 
whom the emergency had raised up. He 
began his warlike career of fifteen years 
by an attack on Oran in 1832, and after 
an obstinate struggle the French, in Feb¬ 
ruary, 1834, consented to a peace ac¬ 
knowledging him as ruling over all the 
Arab tribes west of the Slielif by the title 
of Emir of Maskara. War was soon 
again renewed with varying fortune, and 
in 1837, in order to have their hands free 
in attacking Constantine, the French 
made peace with Abd-el-Kader, leaving to 
him the whole of Western Algeria except 
some coast towns. Constantine was now 
taken, and the subjugation of the province 
of Constantine followed. Meanwhile Abd- 
el-Kader was preparing for another con¬ 
flict, and in November, 1838, he suddenly 
broke into French territory with a strong 
force, and for a time the supremacy of 
the French was endangered. Matters 
took a more favorable turn for them when 
General Bugeaud was appointed gov¬ 
ernor-general in February, 1841. In the 
autumn of 1841 Saida, the last fortress 
of Abd-el-Kader, fell into his hands, after 
which the only region that held out 


against the French was that bordering on 
Morocco. Early in the following year 
this also was conquered, and Abd-el- 
Kader found himself compelled to seek 
refuge in the adjoining empire. From 
Morocco Abd-el-Kader twice made a de¬ 
scent upon Algeria, on the second occasion 
defeating the French in two battles ; and 
in 1844 he even succeeded in raising an 
army in Morocco to withstand the French. 
Bugeaud, however, crossed the frontier, 
and inflicted a severe defeat on this army, 
while a French fleet bombarded the towns 
on the coast. The Emperor of Morocco 
was at length compelled to agree to a 
treaty, in which he not only promised to 
refuse Abd-el-Kader his assistance, but 
even engaged to lend his assistance 
against him. Reduced to extremities, 
Abd-el-Kader surrendered on 27th De¬ 
cember, 1847, and was at first taken to 
France a prisoner, but was afterwards 
released on his promise not to return to 
Algeria. The country was yet far from 
subdued, and the numerous risings that 
successively took place rendered Algeria 
a school for French generals, such as 
PSlissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud, and 
Macmahon. In 1864 Macmahon suc¬ 
ceeded Pelissier as governor-general. 
About this time the emperor. Napoleon 
III, who had visited the colony, introduced 
considerable modifications into the gov¬ 
ernment. Fresh disturbances broke out 
in the south nearly every year till 1871, 
when, during the Franco-German war, a 
great effort was made to throw off the 
French yoke. It was, however, com¬ 
pletely suppressed, and in order to re¬ 
move what was believed to be one prin¬ 
cipal cause of the frequent insurrections 
a civil government was established in¬ 
stead of the military government in the 
northern parts of the colony. The 
southern parts, inhabited by nomadic 
tribes, are still subject to military rule. 

Algesi'ras. See Algeciras. 

A1 crTipro or Algheri (al-g&'ro, &1- 
ga're), a fortified town and 
seaport on the N.w. coast of the island 
of Sardinia, 15 miles s.w. of Sassari; 
the seat of a bishop, with a handsome 
cathedral. Pop. 11,337. 

Algiers (^jSrz), a city and seaport 
xx & on the Mediterranean, capital 

of Algeria, on the Bay of Algiers, partly 
on the slope of a hill facing the sea. 
The old town, which is the higher, is 
oriental in appearance, with narrow, 
crooked streets, and houses that are 
strong, prison-like edifices. The modern 
French town, which occupies the lower 
slope and spreads along the shore, is 
handsomely built, with broad streets and 



Algin 


Alhambra 


elegant squares. It contains the govern¬ 
ment buildings, the central military and 
civil establishments, the barracks, the 
residence of the governor-general and the 
officials of the general and provincial 
government, the superior courts of justice, 
the archbishop’s palace and the cathedral, 
an English church and library, the great 
commercial establishments, etc. A fine 
boulevard built on a series of arches, and 
bordered on one side by handsome build¬ 
ings, runs along the sea front of the 
town overlooking the bay, harbor, and 
shipping. Forty feet below are the quay 
and railway-station, reached by inclined 
roads leading from the center of the 
boulevard. The harbor is good and 
capacious, and it and the city are de¬ 
fended by a strong series of fortifications. 
There is a large shipping trade carried 
on. The climate of Algiers, though ex¬ 
tremely variable, makes it a very desir¬ 
able winter residence for invalids and 
others from colder regions. Though 
warm, it is bracing and tonic, and not of 
a relaxing character. There is a con¬ 
siderable rainfall (average 29 in.), but 
the dry air and absorbent soil prevent 
it from being disagreeable. The winter 
months resemble a bright, sunny English 
autumn, while the heat of summer is not 
so intense as that of Egypt. The sirocco 
or desert wind is troublesome, however, 
during summer, but in the winter it is 
merely a pleasant, warm, dry breeze. 
Hail-storms are not unfrequent, but frost 
and snow in Algiers are so rare as to 
be almost unknown. Pop.(1906) 145,280. 
Algin (al'jin), a viscous, gummy sub- 
® stance obtained from certain sea¬ 
weeds, more especially those of the genus 
Laminaria. It can be utilized for all 
purposes where starch or gum is now re¬ 
quired ; may be used in cookery for soups 
and jellies; and in an insoluble form it 
can be cut, turned, and polished, like horn 
or vulcanite. 


Ale:oa Bav (al '? 5 ' a )' a ba y on the 

® * south coast of Cape Col¬ 

ony, 425 miles e. from the Cape of Good 
Hope, the only place of shelter on this 
coast for vessels during the prevailing 
northwest gales. The usual anchorage is 
off Port Elizabeth, on the west coast, 
now a place of large and increasing 
trade. 

Algol (al-gol'), a star in the constel- 
° lation Perseus (head of Medu¬ 
sa), remarkable as a variable star, 
changing in brightness from the second 
to the fifth magnitude. 

AlgOma (al-go'ma), a district of Can- 
° , ada, on the north side of Lake 
bupenor^ forming the northwest portion 
of Ontario, rich in silver, copper, iron, 


etc. Area 43,132 sq. miles; pop. about 
42,000. 

AlP’Ollkian (al-gon'ki-an) Period, 
JiiguiilUdii an American geological 

period between the Archaean and the 
Cambrian. It is almost anterior to the 
fossil era, though there are carbonaceous 
deposits of possible organic origin and a 
few doubtful fossil indications. These 
rocks are many thousands of miles in 
thickness and are most abundant in the 
Lake Superior region. 

Al^onkins (al-gon'kins), a family of 
North American Indians 
formerly spread over a great extent of 
territory, and still forming a large propor¬ 
tion of the Indians of Canada. They con¬ 
sisted of four groups, namely—(1) the 
eastern group, comprising the Massachu¬ 
setts, Narragansetts, Mohicans, Dela¬ 
wares, and other tribes; (2) the north¬ 
eastern group, consisting of the Abena- 
kis, etc.; (3) the western group, made 
up of the Shawnees, Miamis, Illinois, 
etc.; and (4) the northwestern group, 
including the Chippewas or Ojibbewas, 
the largest of all the tribes. 

Alguacil, Aleuazil (*i-*w4-ther), 

_ ’ ” in Spain an 

officer whose business it is to execute 
the decree of a judge; a sort of con¬ 
stable. 

Algum. See Almug. 


Alha'gi. See CameVs-thorn. 

Alhama (&l-la'ma; that is, the bath), 
liAcUim a town of Southern Spain, 
province of Granada, on the Motril, 25 
miles southwest of Granada, celebrated 
for its warm medicinal (sulphur) baths 
and drinking waters. It formed a Moor¬ 
ish fortress, the recovery of which in 
3482 by the Spaniards led to the entire 
conquest of Granada. It was thrown 
into ruins by an earthquake in Dec., 
1884. Pop. 7679. There is also an 
Alhama in the province of Murcia, with 
a warm mineral spring. Pop. 8461. 

Alham'bra <^r abic ’ Kelfit-al-hamrah , 
‘the red castle’), a 
famous group of buildings in Spain, form¬ 
ing the citadel of Granada when that citv 
was one of the principal seats of the em¬ 
pire of the Moors in Spain, situated on a 
height, surrounded by a wall flanked by 
many towers, and having a circuit of 2 % 
miles. Within the circuit of the walls are 
two churches, a number of mean houses, 
and some straggling gardens, besides the 
palace of Charles V and the celebrated 
Moorish palace which is often distinctive¬ 
ly ,®P° ken of as the Alhambra. This 
building, to which the celebrity of the 
site is entirely due, was the royal palace 



Alhambra 


Alias 


of the kings of Granada. The greater w._ of Malaga, with sulphur baths. Pop. 
part of the present building belongs to the 8601. 

first half of the 14th century. It con- Alj (a'le), cousin and son-in-law of 
sists mainly of buildings surrounding Mohammed, the first of his con- 

two oblong courts, the one called the verts, and the bravest and most faithful 
Court of the Fishpond (or of the of his adherents, born a.d. 602. He 

married Fatima, the daughter of the 
SiUi prophet, but after the death of Mo¬ 
hammed (632) his claims to the cali¬ 
phate were set aside in favor succes¬ 
sively of Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman. 
On the assassination of Othman. in 
a.d. 656, he became caliph, and after 
a series of struggles with his oppo¬ 
nents, including Ayesha, widow of Mo¬ 
hammed, finally lost his life by assas¬ 
sination at Kufa in 661. A Moham¬ 
medan schism arose after his death, 
and has produced two sects. One sect, 
called the Shiites, put Ali on a level 
with Mohammed, and do not acknowl¬ 
edge the three caliphs who preceded 
Ali. They are regarded as heretics by 
the other sect, called Sunnites. The 
maxims and hymns of Ali are yet ex¬ 
tant. See Caliph. 

Pasha of Yanina, generally called 
9 Ali Pasha, a bold and able, but 
ferocious and unscrupulous Albanian, 
born in 1741, son of an Albanian chief 



Alhambra—Moorish Ornament. 

Myrtles), 138 by 74 feet, lying north and 
south ; the other, called the Court of the 
Lions, from a fountain ornamented with 
twelve lions in marble, 115 by 66 feet, 


lying east and west, described as being, 
with the apartments that surround it, who was deprived of his territories by 


* the gem of Arabian art in Spain, its 
most beautiful and most perfect example.* 
Its design is elaborate, exhibiting a pro¬ 
fusion of exquisite detail gorgeous in 
coloring, but the smallness of its. size 
deprives it of the element of majesty. 


rapacious neighbors. Ali by his enter¬ 
prise and success, and by his entire want 
of scruple, got possession of more than his 
father had lost, and made himself master 
of a large part of Albania, including 
Yanina, which the Porte sanctioned his 


The peristyle or portico on each side is holding, with the title of pasha. He then 
supported by 128 pillars of white marble, as a ruler displayed excellent qualities, 
11 feet high, sometimes placed singly and putting an end to brigandage and anarchy, 


sometimes in groups. Two pavilions 
project into the court at each end, the 


making roads, and encouraging commerce. 
He still farther extended his sway by sub¬ 


domed roof of one having been lately duing the brave Suliotes of Epirus, whom 
restored. Some of the finest chambers of he conquered in 1803, after a three years’ 


the Alhambra open into this court, and 
near the entrance a museum of Moorish 


war. He had long been aiming at inde¬ 
pendent sovereignty, and had intrigued 


remains has been formed. The prevalence alternately with England, . France,. and 
of stucco or plaster ornamentation is one Russia, and finally became almost inde- 


of the features of the Alhambra, which 
becomes especially remarkable in the 
beautiful honeycomb stalactital penden- 
tives which the ceilings exhibit. Arab- 


pendent of the Porte, which at length de¬ 
termined to put an end to his power; and 
in 1820 Sultan Mahmoud pronounced his 
deposition. Ali resisted several pashas 


esques and geometrical designs with inter- who were sent to carry out this decision, 

woven inscriptions are present in the rich- -- 1 - -' 1 "” : — jag*- ’ 100 ° — 

est profusion. See works by Washington 
Irving, Owen Jones, and J. C. Murphy. 

AHiomhvQ a city of Los Angeles Co., 
iiindlllUId, Californiat 7 m iles N. TS. 

of Los Angeles. It is in a fine fruit¬ 
growing region and has extensive winer- ures were seized by the Porte, 
ies. It is a health resort, and has in- Alias (a'li-as, Latin, ‘on another 
creased in population in a decade from 
800 to 5021. 

A1 Lanvin (al-ou-ren'), a town of 

Ainaunn Sollthern Spain? 2 o miles 


onlj 1, surrendering at last in 1822, on 
receiving assurances that his life and 
property should be granted him. Faith 
was not kept with him, however; he was 
killed, and his head was cut off and con¬ 
veyed to Constantinople, while his treas- 


oc- 

- casion , 7 ‘otherwise’), a word 
often used in judicial proceedings in con¬ 
nection with the different names that per¬ 
sons have assumed, most likely for 


8—1 






















Aliaska 


Alien 


prudential reasons at different times, and 
in order to conceal identity, as Joseph 
Smith alias Thomas Jones. 

AIiqcVq (a-li-as'ka), the southwestern 
Alld ^ d peninsula of Alaska Territory, 
N. America. 


AliVw*r+ (a-le-bar), Jean Louis 
xxiiuci Bar0N) a distinguished 

French physician, born 1766, died 1837, 
wrote many valuable works on medical 
subjects. 


All "Rpv a ru l er of Egypt, born in the 
^ 9 Caucasus in 1728, was taken 
to Cairo and sold as a slave, but having 
entered the force of the Mamelukes, and 
attained the first dignity among them, he 
succeeded in making himself virtual 
governor of Egypt. He then refused the 
customary tribute to the Porte, and coined 
money in his own name. In 1769 he took 
advantage of a war in which the Porte 
was engaged with Russia to endeavor to 
add Syria and Palestine to his Egyptian 
dominion, and in this he had almost suc¬ 
ceeded, when the defection of his own 
adopted son, Mohammed Bey, drove him 
from Egypt. Joining his ally Sheikh 
Daher in Syria, he still pursued his plans 
of conquest with remarkable success, till 
in 1773 he was induced to make the at¬ 
tempt to recover Egypt with insufficient 
means. In a battle near Cairo his army 
was completely defeated and he himself 
taken prisoner, dying a few days after¬ 
wards either of his wounds or by 
poison. 

Alibi L., ‘elsewhere’), a de¬ 

fense in criminal procedure by 
which the accused endeavors to prove that 
when the alleged crime was committed he 
was present in a different place. 
AliPPYltf* (a-le-kan'ta), a fortified town 
and Mediterranean sea port 
in Spain, capital of the province of the 
same name, picturesquely situated partly 
on the slope of a hill, partly on the plain 
at the foot, about SO miles s. by w. of 
Valencia. The lower town has wide and 
well-built streets; the upper town is old 
and irregularly built. The principal 
manufactures are cotton, linen, and cigars, 
the government cigar factory employing 
about 6000 women. The chief export is 
wine, which largely goes to England. 
Alicante is an ancient town and in 718 
was taken by the Moors, from whom it 
was recovered about 1240. In modern 
times it has been several times besieged 
and bombarded, as by the French in 1709 
and in 1812, and by the people of 
Cartagena during the commotions of 1873. 
Pop. 50,142—The province is very fruit¬ 
ful and well cultivated, producing wine, 
silk, fruits, etc. The wine is of a dark 
color (hence called vino tinto, deep- 


colored wine), and is heavy and sweet. 
Area 2096 sq. miles. Pop. 470,149". 

Ali pat a or Licata (a-Ie-ka'ta, le-ka'- 
9 ta), the most important com¬ 
mercial town on the s. coast of Sicily, at 
the mouth of the Salso, 24 miles E. s. e. of 
Girgenti, with a considerable trade in 
sulphur, grain, wine, oil, nuts, almonds, 
and soda. It occupies the site of the 
town which the Tyrant Phintias of 
Acragas erected and named after himself, 
when Gela was destroyed in 280. Pop. 
22,031. 


Alien (al'yen), a person born out of the 
jurisdiction of a country, and not 
having acquired the full rights of a citizen 
of it. The position of aliens depends 
upon the laws of the respective countries, 
but generally speaking aliens owe a local 
allegiance, and are bound equally with 
natives to obey all general rules for the 
preservation of order which do not re¬ 
late specially to citizens. Aliens have 
been often treated with great harshness 
by the laws of some states. Thus in 
France there long existed what was 
known as the droit d’aubaine , a law which 
claimed for the benefit of the state the 
effects of deceased foreigners leaving no 
heirs who were natives. Aliens have 
been repeatedly the objects of legislation 
in Britain, and the tendency at the pres¬ 
ent day is to communicate some of the 
rights of citizenship to aliens, and to 
widen the definition of subjects. It used 
to be a principle in English law, that a 
natural-born subject could not divest him¬ 
self of his allegiance by becoming natu¬ 
ralized in a foreign state; but it is now 
laid down that a British subject who has 
voluntarily become naturalized in a 
foreign state thereby ceases to be a 
British subject. In the United States the 
position of aliens as regards acquisition 
and holding of real property differs some¬ 
what in the different states, though in 
recent times the disabilities of aliens have 
been removed in most of them. They can 
take, hold, and dispose of personal prop¬ 
erty like native citizens. Individual states 
have no jurisdiction on the subject of 
naturalization, though they may pass laws 
admitting aliens to any privilege short of 
citizenship. A naturalized citizen is not 
eligible to election as president or vice- 
president of the United States, and can¬ 
not serve as senator until after nine 
years’ citizenship, nor as a member of the 
house of representatives until after seven 
years’ citizenship. Five years’ residence 
in the United States and one year’s per¬ 
manent residence in the particular state 
where the application is made are 
necessary for the attainment of citizen¬ 
ship. 



Alien and Sedition Laws 


Aliment 


Alien and Sedition Laws. £ r ^° r h 

in t e in¬ 
ference in the domestic politics of the 
United States caused the passage by 
congress, in 1798, of the Alien law, giv¬ 
ing the president power to order aliens, 
whom he should adjudge dangerous, out 
of the country, and providing for the 
fine and imprisonment of those who re¬ 
fused to go. The Sedition law, passed 
July 14, 1798, to remain in force till 
March 3, 1801, imposed fine and im¬ 
prisonment on conspirators to resist 
government measures, and on libellers 
and scandalizers of the government, con¬ 
gress, or the president. It was aimed 
at the newspapers hostile to the Adams 
administration. These laws gave rise 
to vigorous opposition, as interfering 
with personal liberty and freedom of 
speech, and greatly injured the Federal 
party. 

Alio’nrVi (a-le-gar') , a fort and city in 
xxiigaiii India , in a district of the 

same name in the Northwest Provinces, 

on the East Indian railway, 84 miles 

southeast of Delhi. The town, properly 

called Koel or Coel, is distant about 2 

miles from the fort. Pop. 70,434. 

Alipnmpnt (a-lln'ment), a military 
Allgliiiicm, term> signifying the act 

of adjusting to a straight line or in 
regular straight lines, or the state of being 
so adjusted. 

Alimprit (al'i-ment), food, a term 
xiiimciii, which includes everything, 

solid or liquid, serving as nutriment for 
the bodily system. Aliments are of the 
most diverse character, but all of them 
must contain nutritious matter of some 
kind, which, being extracted by the act 
of digestion, enters the blood, and effects 
by assimilation the repair of the body. 
Alimentary matter, therefore, must be 
similar to animal substance, or transmut- 
able into such, and must be composed in 
a greater or less degree of soluble parts, 
which easily lose their peculiar qualities 
in the process of digestion, and correspond 
to the elements of the body. The food 
of animals consists for the most part of 
substances containing little oxygen and 
exhibiting a high degree of chemical com¬ 
bination, in which respects they differ 
from most substances that serve as sus¬ 
tenance for plants, which are generally 
highly oxidized and exhibit little chemical 
combination. According to the nature of 
their constituents most of the aliments of 
animals are divided into nitrogenous (con¬ 
sisting of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen 
along with nitrogen, and also of sulphur 
and phosphorus) and non-nitrogenous 
(consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and 
oxygen without nitrogen). Water and 


salts are usually considered as forming 
a third group, and, in the widest sense of 
the word aliment, oxygen alone, which 
enters the blood in the lungs, forms a 
fourth. The articles used as food by man 
do not consist entirely of nutritious sub¬ 
stances, but with few exceptions are com¬ 
pounds of various nutritious with indi¬ 
gestible and accordingly innutritious sub¬ 
stances. The only nitrogenous aliments 
are albuminous substances and these are 
contained largely in animal food (flesh, 
eggs, milk, cheese). The principal non- 
nitrogenous substance obtained as food 
from animals is fat. Sugar is so obtained 
in smaller quantities (in milk). While 
some vegetable substances also contain 
much albumen, very many of them are 
rich in starch. Among vegetable sub¬ 
stances the richest in albumen are the 
legumes (peas, beans, and lentils), and 
following them come the cereals (wheat, 
oats, etc.). Sugar, water, and salts may 
pass without any change into the circu¬ 
latory system ; but albuminous substances 
cannot do so without being first rendered 
soluble and capable of absorption (in the 
stomach and intestines) ; starch must be 
converted into sugar and fat emulsified 
(chiefly by the action of the pancreatic 
juice). One of the objects of cooking is 
to make our food more susceptible of the 
operation of the digestive fluids. 

The relative importance of the various 
nutritious substances that are taken into 
the system and enter the blood depends 
upon their chemical constitution. The 
albuminous substances are the most indis¬ 
pensable, inasmuch as they form the 
material by which the constant waste of 
the body is repaired, whence they are 
called by Liebig the substance-formers. 
They also yield heat, but the maintenance 
of temperature may be performed by non- 
nitrogenous substances. As is well known, 
the temperature of warm-blooded animals 
is considerably higher than the ordinary 
temperature of the surrounding air, in 
man about 98.6° F., and the uniformity 
of this temperature is maintained by the 
heat which is set free by the chemical 
processes (of oxidation) which go on 
within the body. The best heat-giver is 
fat. Albuminous matters are not only the 
tissue-formers of the body; they also sup¬ 
ply the vehicle for the oxygen, since this is 
conveyed through the system by the 
albuminous blood corpuscles. Only a 
part of the heat developed passes away 
into the environment of the animal; an¬ 
other part is transformed within the 
body (in the muscles) into mechanical 
work. Hence it follows that the non-ni¬ 
trogenous articles of food produce not 
merely heat but also work, but only with 



Alimentary Canal 


Alkahest 


the assistance of the tissue-building and 
oxygen-bearing albuminous matter. In 
general, it may be said that that ali¬ 
ment is wholesome which is easily solu¬ 
ble and is suited to the power of diges¬ 
tion of the individual. Man is fitted 
to derive nourishment alike from animal 
and vegetable aliment, but can live ex¬ 
clusively on either. The nations of the 
North incline generally more to animal 
aliments; those of the South, and the 
orientals, more to vegetable. The inhab¬ 
itants of the most northerly regions live 
almost entirely upon animal food, and 
very largely on fat on account of its heat¬ 
giving property. See Dietetics, Digestion, 
Adulteration, etc. 

Alimen'tary Canal, J . nam ,£ si " ni - 

J 9 fying the com¬ 

bined oesophagus, stomach, and intestines 
of animals. See (Esophagus, Intestine, 
Stomach. 

Alimony (al'i-mun-i), in law, the al- 

J lowance to which a woman 
is entitled while a matrimonial suit is 
pending between her and her husband, 
or after a legal separation from her hus¬ 
band, not occasioned by adultery or elope¬ 
ment on her part. 

Aliquot Part < al ' i - k " ot) > is . su <* 

u part of a number as 

will divide and measure it exactly with¬ 
out any remainder. For instance, 2 is an 
aliquot part of 4, 3 of 12, and 4 of 20. 
Alismaceae (a-Hs-ma'se-S), the water- 

plantain family, a natural 
order of endogenous plants, the members 
of which are herbaceous, annual or 
perennial; with petiolate leaves sheath¬ 
ing at the base, hermaphrodite (rarely 
unisexual) flowers, disposed in spikes, 
panicles, or racemes. They are floating 
or marsh plants, and many have edible 
fleshy rhizomes. They are found in all 
countries, but especially in Europe and 
North America, where their rather bril¬ 
liant flowers adorn the pools and streams. 
The principal genera are Alisma (water- 
plaintain) and Sagittaria (arrow-head). 
AlisOU ( a I'i* sun )» Archibald, a the¬ 
ologian and writer on esthet¬ 
ics, born at Edinburgh in 1757: died 
there in 1839. He studied in Glasgow 
and at Balliol College, Oxford, entered 
the English Church, and finally (1800) 
settled as the minister of an Episcopal 
chapel at Edinburgh. He published two 
volumes of sermons, and a work entitled 
Essays on the Nature and Principles of 
Taste (1790), in which he maintains 
that all the beauty of material objects 
depends upon the associations connected 
with them. 

Al'ison ®ir Archibald, lawyer and 
9 writer of history, son of the 


above, was born in Shropshire in 1792, 
and died in 1867, near Glasgow. He was 
educated at the University of Edinburgh, 
and in 1814 was admitted to the Scottish 
bar. He spent the next eight years in 
continental travel. On his return he was 
appointed advocate-depute, which post he 
held till 1830. In 1832 he published 
Principles of the Criminal Laiv of Scot¬ 
land, and in 1833 The Practice of the 
Criminal Law. He was appointed sheriff 
of Lanarkshire in 1S34, and retained this 
post till his death. He was made a 
baronet in 1852. His chief work— The 
History of Europe, from 1789 to 1815 — 
was first issued in ten vols., 1833-42, the 
narrative being subsequently brought 
down to 1852, the beginning of the 
second French Empire. This work dis¬ 
plays industry and research, and is gen¬ 
erally accurate, but not very readable. 
Its popularity, however, has been im¬ 
mense, and it has been translated into 
French, German, Arabic, Hindustani, etc. 
Among Sir Archibald’s other productions 
are Principles of Population; Free Trade 
and Protection; England in 1815 and 
1845; Life of the Duke of Marlborough , 
etc. 

His son, Lieut.-general Sir Archibald 
Alison, born in 1826, entered the army 
in 1846, and served in the Crimea, in 
India during the mutiny, and in the 
Ashantee expedition of 1873-4. In Egypt, 
in 1882, he led the Highland Brigade at 
the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and afterwards 
was left in command of the British army 
of occupation, returning home with hon¬ 
ors in 1883. 

AllWfll (al-e-wal'), a village of Hindu¬ 
stan in the Punjab, on the left 
bank of the Satlej, celebrated from the 
battle fought in its vicinity, January 28, 
1S46, between the Sikhs and a British 
army commanded by Sir Harry Smith, 
resulting in the total defeat of the Sikhs. 

Alizarine (a-lia'a-rin) ; a substance 
contained in the madder 
root, and largely used in dyeing reds of 
various shades. Formerly madder root 
was largely employed as a dye-stuff, its 
capability of dyeing being chiefly due to 
the presence in it of alizarine ; but the use 
of the root has been almost superseded by 
the employment of alizarine itself, pre¬ 
pared artificially from one of the constitu¬ 
ents of coal-tar. It forms yellowish-red 
prismatic crystals, nearly insoluble in 
cold, but dissolved to a small extent by 
boiling water, and readily soluble in 
alcohol and ether. It possesses exceed¬ 
ingly strong tinctorial powers. 

Alkahest (al ' ka - hest ). the pretended 
universal solvent or men¬ 
struum of the alchemists. 



Alkali 


Alkoran 


Al'kali (from Ar. al-gali, the ashes of 
the plant from which soda was 
first obtained, or the plant itself), a term 
first used to designate the soluble part of 
the ashes of plants, especially of sea-weed. 
Now the term is applied to various classes 
of chemical bodies having the following 
properties in common:—( 1 ) solubility in 
water; ( 2 ) the power of neutralizing 
acids, and forming salts with them; (3) 
the property of corroding animal and 
vegetable substances; (4) the property of 
altering the tint of many coloring matters 
—thus, they turn litmus, reddened by an 
acid, into blue; turmeric, brown; and 
syrup of violets and infusion of red 
cabbages, green. The alkalies are hy¬ 
drates, or water in which half the hy¬ 
drogen is replaced by a metal or 
compound radical. In its restricted and 
common sense the term is applied to four 
substances only: hydrate of potassium 
(potash), hydrate of sodium (soda), hy¬ 
drate of lithium (lithia), and hydrate of 
ammonium (an aqueous solution of am¬ 
monia). In a more general sense it is 
applied to the hydrates of the so-called 
alkaline earths (baryta, strontia, and 
lime), and to a large number of organic 
substances, both natural and artificial, 
described under Alkaloid.—Volatile alkali 
is a name given to ammonia, because of 
its volatility. Fixed alkalies are the 
non-volatile, stable kind. 

A 1 Irci 11 m pIpt* (al-ka-lim , e-ter), an in- 
HIKdllllie ICI strument for ascertain¬ 
ing the quantity of free alkali in any 
impure specimen, as in the potashes of 
commerce. These, besides the carbonate 
of potash, of which they principally con¬ 
sist, usually contain a portion of foreign 
salts, as sulphate and chloride of potas¬ 
sium, and as the true worth of the sub¬ 
stance, or price for which it ought to sell, 
depends entirely on the quantity of 
carbonate, it is of importance to be able 
to measure it accurately by some easy 
process. This process depends on the 
neutralization of the alkali by an acid of 
known strength, the point of neutraliza¬ 
tion being determined by the fact that 
neutral liquids are without action on 
either red or blue litmus solution. The 
alkalimeter is merely a graduated tube 
furnished with a stopcock at the lower 
extremity, from which the standard acid 
is dropped into water in which a certain 
quantity of the substance is dissolved. 
The quantity required to produce neu¬ 
tralization being noted, the strength of 
the liquid tested is easily arrived at. A 
process of neutralization, exactly the same 
in principle, may be employed to test the 
strength of acids by alkalies, the one 


process being called alkalimetry, the other 
acidimetry. 

Al'kaloicL a term applied to a class of 

’ nitrogenized com pounds 
having certain alkaline properties, found 
in living plants, and containing their act¬ 
ive principles. Their names generally 
end in ine, as morphine, quinine, aconi¬ 
tine, caffeine, etc. Most alkaloids occur 
in plants, but some are formed by decom¬ 
position. Their alkaline character de¬ 
pends on the nitrogen they contain. 
Most natural alkaloids contain carbon, 
hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, but the 
greater number of artificial ones want the 
oxygen. The only property common to 
all alkaloids is that of combining with 
acids to form salts, and some exhibit an 
alkaline reaction with colors. Alkaloids 
form what is termed the organic lases 
of plants. Although formed originally 
within the plant, it has been found pos¬ 
sible to prepare several of these alkaloids 
by purely artificial means. 

AVkflnpt a dyeing drug, the bark of 
m 1SkCUiCt > the root of the Anchusa or 
Alkanna tinctoria, a plant of the order 
Boraginacese, with downy and spear- 
shaped leaves, and clusters of small purple 
or reddish flowers. The plant is some¬ 
times cultivated in Britain, but most of 
the alkanet of commerce is imported from 
the Levant or from Southern France. It 
imparts a fine deep-red color to all 
unctuous substances and is used for 
coloring oils, plasters, lip-salve, confec¬ 
tions, etc.; also in compositions for rub¬ 
bing and giving color to mahogany fur¬ 
niture, and to color spurious port-wine. 

Alkan'na a name henna. See also 

* Alkanet. 

A1 Vorsin an extremely poisonous 

* liquid containing kakodyle, 
together with oxidation products of this 
substance, and formerly known as Cadet's 
fuming liquor, characterized by its 
poisonous, irritating odor and high de¬ 
gree of spontaneous combustibility when 
exposed to air. 

AlVatif (al-ka'tif) a town of Arabia, 

XAiivciLii on the Persian Gulf> carry _ 

ing on a considerable trade. Pop. about 

6 , 000 . 

A1 Inna nr (alk'mar), a town of the 
Netherlands< prov> of Nort h 
Holland, on the North Holland Canal, and 
20 miles n. n. w. of Amsterdam, regularly 
built, with a fine church (St. Lawrence) 
and a richly decorated Gothic town-house ; 
manufactures of salt, sail-cloth, vinegar, 
leather, etc., and an extensive trade in 
cattle, corn, butter, and cheese. Pop. 
18,275. 

Alko'ran. See Koran. 




Alla breve 


Allegheny 


Alla 'hrpvp (bra'va), a musical direc- 
-tiiid, uieve don expressing that a 

breve is to be played as fast as a semi¬ 
breve, a semibreve as fast as a minim, and 
so on. 

Allali ( a ^ a )> i n Arabic, tbe name of 
God, a word of kindred origin 
with the Hebrew word Elohim. Allah 
Akbar (God is great) is a Mohammedan 
war-cry. 

Allahabad l?H a ^ a ' biid '; ! cit y . of 

Allah’), an ancient city 
of India, capital of the Northwest Prov¬ 
inces, on the wedge of land formed by 
the Jumna and the Ganges, largely built 
of mud houses, though the English quarter 
has more of a European aspect. Among 
the remarkable buildings are the fort, 
occupying the angle between the rivers, 
and containing the remains of an ancient 
palace, and now also the barracks, etc., 
and the mausoleum and garden of Khosru, 
the tomb being a handsome domed build¬ 
ing. Allahabad is one of the chief resorts 
of Hindu pilgrims, who have their sins 
washed away by bathing in the waters of 
the sacred rivers Ganges and Jumna at 
their junction; and is also the scene of a 
great fair in December and January. 
There are no manufactures of importance, 
but a large general and transit trade is 
carried on. The town is as old as the 
third century b. c. In the mutiny of 
1857 it was the scene of a serious out¬ 
break and massacre. Population 172,032. 
—The division of Allahabad contains 
the districts of Cawnpur, Futtehpur, 
Hamirpur, Banda, Jaunpur, and Allaha¬ 
bad ; area, 13,740 square miles; pop. 
5,540,702. 

AllarnariHp (al-a-man'da), a genus of 

Aiiamanaa American tr o P i C ai plants, 

order Apocynacese, with large yellow or 
violet flowers, some of them met with in 
European greenhouses. A. cathartica 
has strong emetic and purgative prop¬ 
erties. 

Allan (al'lan), David, a Scottish 
painter, born 1744, died 1796. 
He studied in Foulis’s academy of paint¬ 
ing and engraving in Glasgow, and for 
sixteen years in Italy, finally establishing 
himself at Edinburgh, where he succeeded 
Runciman as master of the Trustees’ 
Academy. His illustrations of the Gentle 
Shepherd, the Cotter's Saturday Night, 
and other sketches of rustic life and man¬ 
ners in Scotland, obtained for him the 
name of the ‘ Scottish Hogarth.’ 

Allan Sir William, a distinguished 
J Scottish artist, born in 1782, 
died in 1850. He was a fellow-student 
with Wilkie in Edinburgh, afterwards a 
student of the Royal Academy, London ; 
then went to St. Petersburg, and remained 


for ten years in the Russian dominions. 
In 1814 he returned to Scotland, and 
publicly exhibited his pictures, one of 
which ( Circassian Captives ) made his 
reputation. He now turned his attention 
to historical painting, and produced, Knox 
admonishing Mary Queen of Scots, Mur¬ 
der of Rizzio, Exiles on their Way to 
Siberia, The Slave Market at Constanti¬ 
nople, etc.; latterly also battle scenes, as 
the Battle of Prestonpans, Nelson Board¬ 
ing the San Nicolas, and two pictures of 
the Battle of Waterloo, the one from the 
British, the other from the French posi¬ 
tion, and delineating the actual scene and 
the incidents therein taking place at the 
moment chosen for the representation. 
One of these Waterloo pictures was pur¬ 
chased by the Duke of Wellington. He 
traveled extensively, visiting Italy, 
Greece, Asia Minor, Spain, and Barbary. 
In 1835 he became R. A., in 1838 presi¬ 
dent of the Scottish Academy, in 1842 he 
was knighted. 

AllontniQ (a-lan'to-is), a structure 
■ n " L ** a appearing during the early 
development of vertebrate animals—rep¬ 
tiles, birds, and mammalia. It is largely 
made up of blood-vessels, and, especially 
in birds, attains a large size. It forms 
the inner lining to the shell, and may 
thus be viewed as the surface by means of 
which the respiration of the embryo is 
carried on. In mammalia the allantois is 
not so largely developed as in birds, and 
it enters into the formation of the 
placenta. 

Allatoona. See Altoona Pass. 

Allee’hariv (aMe-gfi'ni), a river of 
-fiiicgiiany Pennsylvauia and New 

York, which unites with the Monongahela 
at Pittsburg to form the Ohio ; navigable 
nearly 200 miles above Pittsburg. 

Alleghany Mountains, ® om “ t ?“ es e 

used as synonymous with Appalachians, 
but also often restricted to the portion 
of those mountains that traverses the 
States of Virginia, Maryland, and Penn¬ 
sylvania from southwest to the north¬ 
east, and consists of a series of parallel 
ridges for the most part wooded to the 
summit, and with some fertile valleys be¬ 
tween. Their mean elevation is about 
2500 feet; but in Virginia they rise to 
over 4000. 

Alleffhenv (aHe-gen'i), or Allegheny 
& J City, a former city of 
Pennsylvania, on tbe river Alleghany, op¬ 
posite Pittsburg, with which it was united 
by act of the State Legislature in 1906. 
The principal industries of the twin cities 
are those connected with iron and ma¬ 
chinery. Pop. (1900) 129,896. 



Allegiance 


Allen 


Allpcnanpp (a-le'jans; from L. alli- 
xiiiegianoe gare * tQ bin(J)> according 

to Blackstone, is the tie or ligament which 
binds the subject to the sovereign in re¬ 
turn for that protection which the sove¬ 
reign affords the subject, or, generally, 
the obedience which every subject or 
citizen owes to the government of his 
country. It used to be the doctrine of the 
English law that natural-born subjects 
owe an allegiance which is intrinsic and 
perpetual, and which cannot be divested 
by any act of their own ; but this is no 
longer the case. Aliens owe a temporary 
or local allegiance to the government un¬ 
der which they for the time reside. A 
usurper in undisturbed possession of the 
crown is entitled to allegiance; and thus 
treasons against Henry VI were punished 
in the reign of Edward IV though the 
former had, by act of Parliament, been 
declared a usurper. 

Allefforv Ol'e-go-ri). a figurative 
& J representation in which the 
signs (words or forms) signify something 
besides their literal or direct meaning. In 
rhetoric allegory is often but a continued 
simile. Parables and fables are a species 
of allegory. Sometimes long works are 
throughout allegorical, as Spenser’s 
Faerie Queen and Bunyan’s Pilgrim's 
Progress. When an allegory is thus con¬ 
tinued it is indispensable to its success 
that not only the allegorical mean¬ 
ing should be appropriate, but that the 
story should have an interest of its own 
in the direct meaning apart from the 
allegorical signification. Allegory is often 
made use of in painting and sculpture as 
well as in literature. 

Allegri (al-la'gre), Gregorio, an 
XXJ " LC ° AJ ‘ Italian composer, born at 
Rome about 1580, died there about 1650; 
celebrated -for his miserere music to the 
fifty-seventh psalm, which in the Latin 
version begins what that word. 

Allegro (It a ^ an ftl-la'gro), a musical 
Aiicg \j term eX p ress j n g a more or 

less quick rate of movement, or a piece 
of music or movement in lively time. 
Allegro moderato, moderately quick; 
allegro maestoso, quick but with dignity; 
allegro assai and allegro molto, very 
quick ; allegro con brio or con fuoco, with 
fire and energy; allegrissimo, with the 
utmost rapidity. 

All ein (al'en), Joseph, English Non¬ 
conformist divine; born 1633, 
died 1668; the author of a popular re¬ 
ligious book entitled, An Alarm to Un¬ 
converted Sinners. 

Allein (al'en), Richard, English Non¬ 
conformist divine; born in 
1611, died 1681; rector for twenty years 
of Batcombe (Somerset) ; deprived of his 


living at the Restoration, and imprisoned 
for preaching. He wrote, among other 
things, Vindicice Pietatis, or a Vindication 
of Godliness, which was condemned to be 
burned in the royal kitchen. 

Alleluia. See Halleluia. 

Allemande (al-mand), a kind of 
rLiiciiidiiue slow, graceful dance, in¬ 
vented in France in the time of Louis 
XIV, and again in vogue in the time of 
the First Empire. 

Alien (al'len), Bog of, the name ap¬ 
plied to a series of bogs in Ire¬ 
land (not to one continuous morass), dis¬ 
persed, often widely apart, with extensive 
tracts of dry cultivated soil between, over 
a broad belt of land stretching across the 
center of the country, the bogs being, 
however, all on the east side of the 
Shannon. 

Allen Ethan, an American Revolu- 
9 tionary partisan and general: 
born 1737, died 1789. He surprised and 
captured Fort Ticonderoga (1775) ; at¬ 
tacked Montreal, and was captured and 
sent to England, being exchanged in 
1778.—His younger brother, Ira, was 
also prominent in the Revolutionary 
era. 

Allen Grant, naturalist and novelist, 
9 born in Kingston, Canada, iD 
1848. Was professor of logic and philoso¬ 
phy in Queen’s College, Spanish Town, 
Jamaica, in 1873; principal 1874-77. 
Wrote Anglo-Saxon Britain and a num¬ 
ber of works illustrating the principle 
of evolution in simple and attractive lan¬ 
guage. In 1884 he became a novelist, 
writing Philistia, An African Million¬ 
aire, etc. Died in 1899. 

Alleil James Lane, novelist, born 
9 near Lexington, Kentucky, in 
1849; graduated at Transylvania Univer¬ 
sity ; became professor of Latin and High¬ 
er English at Bethany College, W. Va.; 
after 1886 engaged in literature. His first 
story, John Gray, afterward extended and 
republished as The Choir Invisible, gave 
him a high reputation from its depth of 
thought and insight. Other works are 
The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky; 
With Flute and Violin; Aftermath; A 
Kentucky Cardinal; A Summer in Ar- 
cady, etc. 

Alleil J° EL Asaph, zoologist, born at 
9 Springfield, Massachusetts, in 
1838; curator of Mammalogy and Orni¬ 
thology at American Museum of Natural 
History after 1855; member of the 
National Academy of Sciences after 
1876; first president American Orni¬ 
thologists’ Union. Author of History of 
North American Pinnipeds; Monographs 
of North American Rodentia, etc. 




Allen 


Allibone 


Allpn John, a Scotch political and 
xlilcll, historical writer; born in 
1771, died in 1843. He studied medicine, 
and became M. D. of Edinburgh Univer¬ 
sity. In 1801 he went abroad with Lord 
Holland and family, and henceforth he 
maintained this connection, being long an 
inmate of Holland House (London) and a 
member of the brilliant society that as¬ 
sembled there. He contributed many 
articles to the Edinburgh Review; wrote 
an Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of 
the Royal Prerogative in England; 
Vindication of the Ancient Independence 
of Scotland, etc. 

Allpn Ralph, celebrated as a philan- 
xiiicn, thropist, and as the friend of 
Pope, Fielding, and the elder Pitt, was 
born in 1694, died in 1764. He lived 
chiefly at Bath, where he made a large 
income as farmer of a system of posts 
and as owner of quarries. He is the pro¬ 
totype of Squire Allworthy in Fielding’s 
Tom Jones; and after the novelist’s death 
he took charge of his family. Pope, who 
received many kindnesses at his hands, 
referred to him in the lines: 


Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, 
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. 


With Pitt he was on intimate terms, and 
left him £1,000 by will. Hurd, Sherlock, 
and Warburton were also his friends. 
Allen Thomas, an English mathe- 
ziiicii, ma ticia, n , philosopher, antiqua¬ 
rian, and astrologer, born in 1542, died 
in 1632. He studied at Oxford, and lived 
the greater part of his life in learned 
retirement, corresponding with many of 
the famous men of his time. In his own 
day he was generally reputed a dealer in 
the black art. 

AIIpyi William, Cardinal, an English 
, Roman Catholic of the time of 
Queen Elizabeth, a strenuous opponent 
of Protestantism and supporter of the 
claims of Philip II to the English throne ; 
born 1532, died 1594. It was by his 
efforts that the English college for 
Catholics at Douay was established. He 
was made cardinal in 1587. His writ¬ 
ings were numerous. 

AIIpti William, an American clergy- 
9 man and author; born in 1784; 
lied 1868. He was president of Bowdoin 
College 1820-1839; author of American 
Biographical and Historical Dictionary, 
a Supplement to Webster's Dictionary, 
Poems, etc. 


Allenstein ( i n ? n 1> tIn) ’- a ‘“ wn ,, in 

East Prussia, 65 miles 
south of Konigsberg, on the Alle, with 
breweries and manufactures of iron and 
lucifer matches. Pop. 24,207. 


A llcmlmxm a town in the eastern sec- 
Alientown, tion of Pennsylvania, on 

the Lehigh river, 18 miles above its junc¬ 
tion with the Delaware. It has an im¬ 
portant trade in coal and iron ore, with 
large blast-furnaces, rolling-mills, forges 
and foundries, and various other indus¬ 
tries. Pop 51,913. 

Allep'pi. See Aulapolay. 


Allevn ( al ' len )> Edward, an actor and 
theater proprietor in the reigns 


and 

proprietor in the reigns 
of Elizabeth and James I, friend of Jon- 
son and Shakspere; born 1566, died 1626. 
Having become wealthy, he built Dulwich 
College, under the name of ‘ The College 
of God’s Gift,’ in 1613-17. See Dulwich. 
All-fmirs a l? ame at cards, which de- 
u rives its name from the four 
chances of which it consists, for each of 
which a point is scored. 

All-hallows, All-hallowmas, 

a name for All-saints’ Day. 

Al'lifl (now aja or aia), a small affluent 
of the Tiber, joining it about 12 
miles from Rome, famous for the defeat 
sustained by the Roman army from Bren- 
nus and his Gauls, resulting in the cap¬ 
ture and sack of Rome, about 390 b.c. 
Alliappnnc (al-i-a'shus) Plants, 

/liliaceous vegetables be i on g in g to 

the genus Allium (order Liliaceae), that 
to which the onion, leek, garlic, shalot, 
etc., belong, or to other allied genera, 
and distinguished by a certain peculiar 
pungent smell and taste characterized as 
alliaceous. This flavor is also found in a 
few plants having no botanical affinities 
with the above, as in the Alliaria offici¬ 
nalis, or jack-by-the-hedge, a plant of 
the order Cruciferse. 

A 111 a DPP (a-li'ans), a league between 
xxiiiauuc ^0 or more powers. Al¬ 
liances are divided into offensive and de¬ 
fensive. The former are for the purpose 
of attacking a common enemy, and the 
latter for mutual defense. An alliance 
often unites both of these conditions. Of¬ 
fensive alliances, of course, are usually 
directed against some particular enemy ; 
defensive alliances against any one from 
whom an attack may come. 

Alliance, Holy. See Holy Alliance. 

Alliance, t' At y.. of StaI * county Ohio, 
y 57 miles southeast of Cleve¬ 
land, and 93 miles n.n.w. of Pittsburg; 
seat of Mt. Union College. Manufactures 
of heavy machinery, steel castings, cash 
registers, etc. Pop. 15,083. 

Allihnnp (al'i-bon), Samuel Austin, 
UUIiC an author and compiler, 
born at Philadelphia in 1816; died in 
1889. He is best known by his notable 



Allice 


Alliteration 


work, A Critical Dictionary of English 
Literature and British and American 
Authors. This includes a brief biogra¬ 
phy of each author, with copious ex¬ 
tracts from the opinions of leading 
critics on his works. He edited also A 
Dictionary of Poetical Quotations, A 
Dictionary of Prose Quotations, and 
Great Authors of All Ages. In 1879 
he became librarian of the Lenox Library, 
New York. 

Allice, a name of the common shad. 

Allier (al-le-a), a central department 
of France, intersected by the 
river Allier, and partly bounded by the 
Loire; surface diversified by offsets of the 
Cevennes and other ranges, rising in the 
south to over 4000 feet, and in general 
richly wooded. It has extensive beds of 
coal as well as other minerals, which are 
actively worked, there being several flour¬ 
ishing centers of mining and manufactur¬ 
ing enterprise; mineral waters at Vichy, 
Bourbon, L’Archambault, etc. Large 
numbers of sheep and cattle are bred. 
Area 2,848 miles. Capital, Moulins. 
Pop. 422,024. The river Allier flows 
northward for 200 miles through Loz&re, 
Upper Loire, Puy de Dome, and Allier, 
and enters the Loire, of which it is the 
chief tributary. 

lie of 
found 
solu¬ 
tion of questions concerning the com¬ 
pounding or mixing together of different 
ingredients, or ingredients of different 
qualities or values. Thus if a quantity of 
sugar worth 8 c the lb. and another quan¬ 
tity worth 10 c are mixed the question to 
be solved by alligation is, what is the 
value of the mixture by the pound? 
Allio’atnv (al'i-ga-tur) (a corruption 
HIIlgdLUl of Sp. el lagarto , lit. the 

lizard—L. lacertus), a genus of reptiles 
of the family Crocodilidse, differing from 
the true crocodiles in having a shorter 
and flatter head, in having cavities or 
pits in the upper jaw, into which the 
long canine teeth of the under jaw fit, 
and in having the feet much less webbed. 
Their habits are less perfectly aquatic. 
They are confined to the warmer parts of 
America, where they frequent swamps 
and marshes, and may be seen basking on 
the dry ground during the day in the heat 
of the sun. They are most active during 
the night, when they make a loud bel¬ 
lowing. The largest of these animals 
grow to the length of 18 or 20 feet. They 
are covered by a dense armor of horny 
scales, impenetrable by a rifle-ball, and 
have a huge mouth, armed with strong, 
conical teeth. They swim with wonder¬ 


Alli nation (al-i-ga'shun), a ri 

Aiiigdiiun arithmetic> chiefly 
in the older books, relating to the 


ful celerity, impelled by their long, later¬ 
ally-compressed, and powerful tails. On 
land their motions are proportionally 
slow and embarrassed because of the 
length and unwieldiness of their bodies 
and the shortness of their limbs. They 
live on fish, and any small animals or 
carrion, and sometimes catch pigs on 
the shore or dogs which are swimming. 
They even sometimes make man their 
prey. In winter they burrow in the mud 
of swamps and marshes, lying torpid till 
the warm weather. The female lays a 
great number of eggs, which are deposited 
in the sand or mud, and left to be hatched 
by the heat of the sun, but the mother 
alligator is very attentive to her young. 
The most fierce and dangerous species is 
that found in the southern parts of the 
United States ( Alligator Lucius ), having 
the snout a little turned up, slightly re¬ 
sembling that of the pike. The alligators 
of South America are there very often 
called Caymans. A. sclerops is known 
also as the Spectacled Cayman, from the 
prominent bony rim surrounding the orbit 
of each eye. The flesh of the alligator is 
sometimes eaten. Among the fossils of 
the south of England are remains of a 
true alligator (A. Hantoniensis) in the 
Eocene beds of the Hampshire basin. 

Alligator-apple 

custard-apple, growing in marshy dis¬ 
tricts in Jamaica, little eaten on account 
of its narcotic properties. 

A11 i crci triT-riPfi r* ( Pcrsea gratissima), 
iilllgdlOI pcdl an ever g reen t ree of 

the natural order Lauracese, with a fruit 
resembling a large pear, 1 to 2 lbs. in 
weight, with a firm, marrow-like pulp of 
a delicate flavor; called also avocado- 
pear, or subaltern’s butter. It is a native 
of tropical America. 

Al'linP’ham (ailing-ham), William, 
‘ n,A lliiglldiii an E n gn s h poet, born 

in Ireland in 1824, died 1889. He was 
a frequent contributor to periodicals, 
and for some time edited Fraser's Maga¬ 
zine. 

Allicnn (al'i-son), William B., born 

AlllbUll Jn perr y 0hio? iQ 1829 died 

1908. He served in Congress as Repre¬ 
sentative and after 1873 as Senator from 
Iowa, and was a member of the Mone¬ 
tary Congress at Brussels in 1892. 

Alli+Avafinn (a-lit-er-a'shun), the rep- 

Alllteraxion etition of the same let¬ 
ter at the beginning of two or more words 
immediately succeeding each other, or at 
short intervals; as ‘ many men many 
minds ’; ‘ death defies the doctor.’ 

‘ Apt alliteration’s artful aid ’ Church- 
hill. * Puffs, powders, patches, ftibles, 
6 illet-doux ’ Pope. In the ancient Ger- 



Allium 


All Souls’ Day 


man and Scandinavian and in early Eng¬ 
lish poetry alliteration took the place of 
terminal rhymes, the alliterative sylla¬ 
bles being made to recur with a certain 
regularity in the same position in suc¬ 
cessive verses. In the Vision of William 
Concerning Piers the Ploughman, for in¬ 
stance, it is regularly employed as in 
the following lines :— 

Hire robe was f ul riche’ of red scarlet engreyned, 
With ribanes of red gold’ and of riche stones ; 
Hire arraye me ravysshed’ such ricchesse saw I 
nevere ; 

I had wondre what she was’ and whas wyf she 
were. 


In the hands of some English poets and 
prose writers of later times alliteration 
became a mere conceit. It is still em¬ 
ployed in Icelandic poetry, and also in 
Finnish poetry. So far has alliteration 
sometimes been carried that long composi¬ 
tions have been written every word of 
which commenced with the same letter. 
Allium, (al'li-um), a genus of plants, 
u 1 order Liliacese, containing nu¬ 
merous well-known species of pot-herbs. 
They are umbelliferous, and mostly peren¬ 
nial, herbaceous plants, but a few are 
biennial. Among them are garlic (A. 
sativum), onion (A. Cepa), leek (A. Por- 
rum), chive (A. Schoenoprasum) , shallot 
(A. ascalonicum) . The peculiar allia¬ 
ceous flavor that belongs to them is well 
known. 

Alina (al'lo-a), a river port of Scotland, 
xxxxua on t jj e nort h b an k 0 f the Forth 

(where there is now a bridge), 6 miles 
from Stirling, county of Clackmannan. 
It carries on brewing, distilling, and ship¬ 
building ; has manufactures of woolens, 
bottles, etc., and a considerable shipping 
trade. Pop. 14,458. 

Allnnntinn (al-6-ku'shun), an address, 
Xlliucutiun a term particularly ap _ 

plied to certain addresses on important 
occasions made by the pope to the cardi¬ 
nals. 

Allnrlinm (a-lo'di-um), land held in 
xxixuuiuiii one , g Qwn right> without 

any feudal obligation to a superior or 
lord. In England, according to the theory 
of the British constitution, all land is 
held of the crown (by feudal tenure) ; 
the word allodial is, therefore, never ap¬ 
plied to landed property there. 
Allopathy (al-<>P'a-thi), the name ap- 
plied by homoeopathists to 
systems of medicine other than their own ; 
Hahnemann’s principle, promulgated by 
Hippocrates centuries before, being that 
* like cures like,’ he called his own sys¬ 
tem homoeopathy (Greek, liomoios, like; 
pathos, disease) and other systems allo¬ 
pathy (Greek, alios, other, and pathos, 
disease). See Homoeopathy. 


Allntrrmv (a-lot'ro-pi; Greek alios, 
miOUOpy other tropos, habit), a 

term used to express the fact that one and 
the same element may exist in different 
forms, differing widely in external physi¬ 
cal properties. Thus, carbon occurs as 
the diamond, and as charcoal and plum¬ 
bago, and is therefore regarded as a sub¬ 
stance subject to allotropy. 

Allrvura-u- (al'lo-wa), a parish of 
iiliOWay Scotland> now inc i ud ed in 

Ayr parish. Here Burns was born in 
1759, and the ‘ auld haunted kirk,’ near 
his birthplace, was the scene of the dance 
of witches in Tam o’Shanter. 


A110V a substance produced 

* by melting together two or 
more metals, excepting mercury, or 
quicksilver (see Amalgam), sometimes a 
definite chemical compound, but more 
generally merely a mechanical mixture. 
Most metals mix together in all propor¬ 
tions, but others unite only in definite 
proportions, and form true chemical com¬ 
pounds. Others again resist combina¬ 
tion, and when fused together form not 
a homogeneous mixture, but a conglo¬ 
merate of distinct masses. The changes 
produced in their physical properties by 
the combination of metals are very vari¬ 
ous. Their hardness is in general in¬ 
creased. their malleability and ductility 
impaired. The color of an alloy may 
be scarcely different from that of one 
of its. components or it may show traces 
of neither of two. Its specific gravity is 
sometimes less than the mean of that of 
its component metals. Alloys are always 
more fusible than the metal most difficult 
to melt that enters into their composition, 
and generally even more so than the most 
easily melted one. Newton’s fusible 
metal, composed of three parts of tin, 
two or five parts of lead, and five or eight 
parts of bismuth, melts at temperatures 
varying from 198° to 210° F. (and there¬ 
fore in boiling water) ; its components 
fuse respectively at the temperatures 
442°, 600°, and 478° F. Sometimes each 
metal retains its own fusing-point. With 
few exceptions metals are not much used 
in a pure state, this applying to gold and 
silver coins. Printers’ types are made 
from an alloy of lead and antimony; brass 
and a numerous list of other alloys are 
formed from copper and zinc; bronze 
from copper and tin. 

All Saints’ Day, ****£■ 

instituted in 835, and celebrated on the 
1st of November in honor of the saints 
in general. 

All Souls’ Day, ® festival of the 
J 9 Roman Cath o 1 i c 
Church, instituted in 998, and observed 



Allspice 


Almanac 


on the 2d of November for the relief of 
souls in purgatory. 

All«iTvir>p (al'spis), or Pimenta, is the 

niispice dried berry of a West In . 

dian species of myrtle ( Myrtus Pimenta ), 
a beautiful tree with white and fragrant 
aromatic flowers and leaves of a deep 
shining green. Pimenta is thought to 
resemble in flavor a mixture of cinnamon, 
nutmegs, and cloves, whence the popular 
name of allspice; it is also called Jamaica 
pepper. It is employed in cookery, also 
in medicine as an agreeable aromatic, 
and forms the basis of a distilled water, a 
spirit, and an essential oil. 

Allstnn (al'stun), Washington, an 
American painter; born 1779, 
died 1843. He studied in London and 
Rome, and is most 
celebrated for his 
pictures of Scrip¬ 
tural subjects. He 
also wrote poems 
and a novelette 
(Monaldi ). 

Alluvium (_*- 

vi-um ; Latin, allu¬ 
vium — ad, to, and 
luo, to wash), de¬ 
posits of soil col¬ 
lected by the action 
of water, such as 
are found in val¬ 
leys and plains, 
consisting of 
loam, clay, gravel, 
etc., washed down 
from the higher 
grounds. Great 
alterations are of¬ 
ten produced by al¬ 
luvium—deltas and . 

whole islands being often formed by this 
cause. Much of the rich land along 
the banks of rivers is alluvial in its 
origin. 

Allygurh. See Aligarh. 

A I'm a a small river of Russia, in the 
llLcL i Crimea, celebrated from the vic¬ 
tory gained by the allied British and 
French over the Russians, September 20, 
1854. 

AlTYiciecintflr (al-ma-kan^tar), a name 

Aimacantar v given t0 circles of al _ 

titude parallel to the horizon, and there¬ 
fore to an astronomical instrument for 
determining time and latitude. This con¬ 
sists of a telescope revolving on a hori¬ 
zontal axis, which may be clamped at 
any altitude, the whole resting on a float 
in a vessel of mercury. A circle of equal 
altitude may thus be traced out accu¬ 
rately. and by the transit of stars across 



Alluvial plain of the 
Mississippi. 


this circle time and latitude can be deter¬ 
mined. 

Aim aria (al-ma'da) a town of Portugal, 
xAiiuaua Qn the Tagug> 0 p p 0site Lisbon ; 

has large wine depots. Pop. 7,913. 

Almaden (ai-ma-then'), a town of 

Spain, province of Ciudad- 
Real, celebrated both in ancient and 
modern times for its mines of quick¬ 
silver (in the form of cinnabar). Pop. 
about 7375. 

Almaden (al'ma-den), a place in 
Alin.dU.en California> about 60 m. 

S. E. of San Francisco, with rich quick¬ 
silver mines, the product of which has 
been largely employed in gold and silver 
mining. 

Al-macroc'f (al'ma-jest), the Arabic 
AillldgebL ( sem i-Greek) name of a 

celebrated astronomical work composed by 
Claudius Ptolemy. 

Almao'rn (al-ma'gro), an old town of 
AimaglO Ciudad-Real, Spain (New 
Castile), with important lace manufac¬ 
tures. Pop. 7,974. 

Al-ma'a’vn Diego de. Spanish ‘ Con- 
Ainid glUj quistador,’ a foundling, 

born about 1464, killed 1538. He took 
part with Pizarro in the conquest of 
Peru, and after frequent disputes with 
Pizarro about their respective shares 
in their conquests led an expedition 
against Chile, which he failed to conquer- 
On his return a struggle took place be¬ 
tween him and Pizarro, in which Almagro 
was finally overcome, taken prisoner, 
strangled, and afterwards beheaded. He 
was avenged by his son, who raised an 
insurrection in which Pizarro was assas¬ 
sinated in 1541. The younger Almagro 
was put to death in 1542 by De Castro, 
the new viceroy of Peru. 

Almalpp (al-ma-le'), a town of south- 
Alllidiee western Asiatic Turkey, 50 

miles from Adalia, with thriving manu¬ 
factures and a considerable trade. Pop. 
about 3,500. 

AFrna Ma'tpr ( L *> fostering or boun- 

iii ma lYia xer \ eo > us mother)> a term 

familiarly applied to their own university 
by those who have had a university 
education. 

Al-Mamnn (ma-mon'), a caliph of 
Ai IViaimm the Abasside dynasty, son 

of Harun-al-Rashid, born 786, died 833. 
Under him Bagdad became a great center 
of art and science. 

Alma nap (al'ma-nak), a calendar, in 
Aiiiicuido which are set down the ris _ 

ing and setting of the sun, the phases of 
the moon, the most remarkable positions 
and phenomena of the heavenly bodies, 
for every month and day of the year; 
also the several fasts and feasts to be 
observed in the church and state, etc., 





Almansa 


Almeria 


and often much miscellaneous information 
likely to be useful to the public. The 
term is of Arabic origin, but the Arabs 
were not the first to use almanacs, which 
indeed existed from remote ages. They 
became generally used in Europe within 
a short time after the invention of 
printing; and they were very early re¬ 
markable, as some are still, for the 
mixture of truth and falsehood which 
they contained. Their effects in France 
were found so mischievous, from the 
pretended prophecies which they pub¬ 
lished, that an edict was promulgated by 
Henry III in 1579 forbidding any pre¬ 
dictions to be inserted in them relating 
to civil affairs, whether those of the state 
or of private persons. In the reign of 
James I of England letters-patent were 
granted to the two universities and the 
Stationers’ Company for an exclusive 
right of printing almanacs, but in 1775 
this monopoly was abolished. During the 
civil war of Charles I, and thence on¬ 
wards, English almanacs were conspicu¬ 
ous for the unblushing boldness of their 
astrological predictions, and their deter¬ 
mined perpetuation of popular errors. 
The most famous English almanac was 
Poor Robin's Almanack , which was pub¬ 
lished from 1663 to 1775. Still more 
famous became Poor Richard's Almanac , 
founded by Benjamin Franklin at Phila¬ 
delphia in 1732, and notable for its 
homely maxims. Some of the almanacs 
that are now annually published are ex¬ 
tremely useful to men engaged in official, 
mercantile, literary, or professional busi¬ 
ness, such as Whitaker's Almanac, of 
England, and the Almanach de Gotha, 
of Germany, which has appeared since 
1764 and contains in small bulk a won¬ 
derful quantity of information regarding 
the reigning families and governments, 
the finances, commerce, population, etc., 
of the different states throughout the 
world. The Nautical Almanack is an 
important work published annually 
by the British government, two or 
three years in advance, in which is 
contained much useful astronomical mat¬ 
ter, more especially the distances of the 
moon from the sun and from certain fixed 
stars, for every three hours of apparent 
time, adapted to the meridian of the 
Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The 
American Ephemeris and Nautical Al¬ 
manac, a similar work, has been issued 
annually since 1855 by the Bureau of 
Navigation of the United States, and 
France and Germany have publications 
of the same character. 


Almansa (al-miin'sa), a town of south¬ 
eastern Spain (Murcia), 
near which was fought (April 25, 1707) a 


decisive battle in the war of the Spanish 
succession, when the French, under the 
Duke of Berwick, defeated the Anglo- 
Spanish army under the Earl of Galway. 
Pop. 11,180. 

A 1 in q n 7 iiv or Almansur (al-man'- 
ziiiuaiizui, s5r)> caliph of the Abas _ 

side dynasty, reigned 754—775. He was 
cruel and treacherous and a persecutor of 
the Christians, but a patron of learning. 

Alma-Tad pm a (al'ma ta'de-ma), 
-timid -LdUeilld Lawrence, a Dutch 


painter, born in 1836, resident since 1870 
in England, where he is a naturalized 
subject. In 1876 he was elected as 
associate of the Royal Academy, in 1879 
an academician; he is also a member 
of various foreign academies. He is 
especially celebrated for his pictures of 
ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian life, 
which are painted with great realism and 
archaeological correctness. 

Al'meh name gi yen ' m Egypt to a 
1 9 class of girls whose profession 

is to sing for the public amusement, being 
engaged to perform at feasts and other 
entertainments (including funerals). 
Many of them are skillful improvisatrici. 
Aim pi da (al-ma'i-da), one of the 
c Ucl strongest fortresses in Por¬ 
tugal, in the province of Beira, near the 
Spanish border, on the Coa. Pop. 2,300. 
Taken by Massena from the English in 
1810, retaken by Wellington in 1811. 
Almpida D ’> (d&l-ma'i-da), Francisco, 
c ua > first Portuguese viceroy of 
India, son of the Conde de Abrantes, 
born about the middle of the fifteenth 
century. He fought with renown against 
the Moors, and being appointed governor 
of the new Portuguese settlements on the 
African and Indian coasts, he sailed for 
India in 1505, accompanied by his son 
Lorenzo and other eminent men. In 
Africa he took possession of Quiloa and 
Mombas, and in the East he conquered 
Cananor, Cochin, Calicut, etc., and estab¬ 
lished forts and factories. His son 
Lorenzo discovered the Maldives and 
Madagascar, but perished in an attack 
made on him by a fleet sent by the Sul¬ 
tan of Egypt, with the aid of the Porte 
and the Republic of Venice. Having 
signally defeated the Mussulmans (1508), 
and avenged his son, and being super¬ 
seded by Albuquerque, he sailed for 
Portugal, but was killed in a skirmish 
on the African coast in 1510. 

Almelo (al-ma-lo'), a town of Holland, 
prov. Overyssel, on the Vechte; 
with manufactures of linen. Pop. 9,957. 
Almeria (al-ma-re'a), a fortified sea- 
. , 7* Port of Southern Spain, 
capital of prov. Almeria, near the mouth 
of a river and on the gulf of same name, 



Almodovar 


Alnwick 


with no building of consequence except a 
Gothic cathedral, but with an important 
trade, exporting lead, esparto, barilla, etc. 
The province, which has an area of 3,300 
sq. miles, is generally mountainous, and 
rich in minerals. Pop. of town, 47,326; 
of province, 359,013. 

Alrrmdnvar (al-mo-do , var), a town 

Aimoaovar of Spain> prov Ciudad _ 

Real (New Castile), near the Sierra 
Morena. Pop. 12,535. 

Almnliarlpc (al'mo-hadz), an Arabic 
or Moorigh dynasty that 
ruled in Africa and Spain in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, founded by a 
religious enthusiast. They overthrew the 
Almoravides in Spain, but themselves re¬ 
ceived a defeat in 1212 from which they 
did not recover, and in 1269 were over¬ 
thrown in Africa. 

Al-mokanna. See Mokanna. 

Almond the fruit of the 

almond tree (Amygdalus com¬ 
munis), a tree which grows usually to the 
height of 20 feet, and is akin to the peach, 
nectarine, etc., (order Rosacese). It has 
beautiful pinkish flowers that appear be¬ 
fore the leaves, which are oval, pointed, 
and delicately serrated. It is a native 
of Africa and 
Asia, natural¬ 
ized in South¬ 
ern Europe, and 
cultiva ted in 
for its beauty, 
as its fruit does 
not ripen there. 

The fruit is a 
drupe, ovoid, 
and with downy 
outer surface; 
the fleshy cov¬ 
ering is tough 
and fibrous; it 

covers the com- , . , . . . 

pressed wrink- Almond (Jmypdalu, com- 

led stone inclos¬ 
ing the seed or almond within it. There 
are two varieties, one sweet and the other 
bitter; both are produced from A. com¬ 
munis, though from different varieties. 
The chief kinds of sweet almonds are the 
Valencian, Jordan, and Malaga. They 
contain a bland fixed oil, consisting chiefly 
of olein. Bitter almonds come from 
Magador, and besides a fixed oil they con¬ 
tain a substance called emulsin, and also 
a bitter, crystalline substance called 
amygdalin, which, acting on the emulsin, 
produces prussic acid, whence the aroma 
of bitter almonds when mixed with water. 
Almond-oil, a bland fixed oil, is expressed 
from the kernels of either sweet or bitter 
almonds, and is used by perfumers and 



in medicine. A poisonous essential oil is 
obtained from bitter almonds, which is 
used for flavoring by cooks and confec¬ 
tioners, also by perfumers and in medi¬ 
cine. The name almond, with a qualify¬ 
ing word prefixed, is also given to the 
seeds of other species of plants; thus, 
Java almonds are the kernels of Ganarium 
commune. 

Almondburv (& ,mun d-be-ri), a town 
Alinuiiu u ui y of England Wes t Riding 

of Yorkshire, included in the borough of 
Huddersfield, with manufactures of wool¬ 
en, cotton and silk goods. 

Almonpr (al'mo-ner), an officer of a 
-n.linuii.ci religious establishment to 

whom belonged the distribution of alms. 
The grand almoner (grand aumonier ) of 
France was the highest ecclesiastical 
dignitary in that kingdom before the 
revolution. The lord almoner, or lord 
high almoner of England, is generally a 
bishop, whose office is well-nigh a sinecure. 
He distributes the sovereign’s doles to the 
poor on Maundy Thursday. 

A lrnnra (al-mo'ra) a town and fortress 
of Hindustan> in the North¬ 
west Provinces, capital of Ivumaon, 170 
miles e. N. E. from Delhi. Pop. about 
8000. 

A Itti nvp vi fl pcs (al-mo'ra-vldz), a Moor- 
21111101 i s h dynasty which arose 

in northwestern Africa in the eleventh 
century, and, having crossed the Straits of 
Gibraltar, gained possession of all Arabic 
Spain, but was overthrown by the 
Almohades in the following century. 

A I'm no* (or Al'gum) names of trees, 
211 111 u & which occur in I Ki. f x, 11, 
12 and II Chr., ii. 8, and ix. 10, 11 to 
designate trees of which the wood was 
used for pillars in the temple and the 
king’s house, for harps and psalteries, 
etc. They are said in one passage to be 
hewn in Lebanon, in another to be brought 
from Ophir. They have been identified by 
critics with the red sandal-wood of India. 
Some of them may possibly have been 
transplanted to Lebanon by the Phoeni¬ 
cians. 

Alrnnnppflv (&l"mqn-y<i kar), a sea- 
iliniUIIcOclI por j. q £ gp a j n< Andalusia, 

on the Mediterranean. Pop. S,022. 
Al'nno’pr formerly, in England, an 
211 Ilcl & CA > official whose duty it was 
to inspect, measure, and stamp woolen 
cloth. 

A1 'nUS. See Alder. 

A In win V (an'ik), a town of England, 
21111WA011 county town of Northumber¬ 
land, 34 miles n. from Newcastle, near 
the Ain. It is well built, and carries 
on tanning, brewing, and a general trade. 
Alnwick Castle, residence of the Dukes 



Aloe 


Alpha and Omega 


of Northumberland, for many centuries 
a fortress of great strength, stands close 
to the town. Pop. 7041, 

Aloe the name of a number 

of plants belonging to the genus 
Aloe (order Liliacese), some of which 
are not more than a few inches, while 
others are 30 feet and upwards in height; 
natives of Africa and other hot regions; 
leaves fleshy, thick, and more or less 
spinous at the edges or extremity; flowers 
with a tubular corolla. Some of the 
larger kinds are of great use, the fibrous 
parts of the leaves being made into 
cordage, fishing nets and lines, cloth, etc. 
The inspissated juice of several species is 
used in medicine, under the name of aloes , 
forming a bitter purgative. The principal 
drug-producing species are the Socotrine 
aloe (A. Socotrina). the Barbadoes aloe 
(A. vulgaris ), the Cape aloe (A. spicata ), 
etc. A beautiful violet color is afforded 
by the leaves of the Socotrine aloe. The 
American aloe (see Agave) is a different 
plant altogether; as are also the aloes 
or lign-aloes of Scripture, which are sup¬ 
posed to be the Aquilaria Agallochum, or 
aloes-wood (which see). Aloe fiber is 
obtained from species of Aloe , Agave , 
Yucca , etc., and is made into coarse 
fabrics, ropes, etc. 

Aloes-wood, Ea gle-wood, or Agila- 
J wood, the inner portion 
of the trunk of Aquilaria ovata and A. 
Agallochum , forest trees belonging to the 
order Aquilariaceae, found in tropical 
Asia, and yielding a fragrant resinous 
substance, which, as well as the wood, is 
burned for its perfume. Another tree, 
the Aloexylon Agallochum (order Legu- 
minosse), also produces aloes-wood. This 
wood is supposed to be the lign-aloes of 
the Bible. 

Alcmecia (a-lo-pe'ci-a), a variety of 
a baldness in which the hair 
falls off from the beard and eyebrows, as 
well as the scalp. 

Alo-necurus (a-te-pe-c&'rus), a genus 
AiU^couiua of grassegt gee FoxtaU . 


grass. 

Alnra (a-lo'ra), a town of Southern 
Spain, prov. Malaga; pop. 

10,525. 

Alnct or Aalst (a'lost, alst), a town 
f of Belgium, 15 miles w. n. w. 
of Brussels, on the Dender (here navi¬ 
gable), with a beautiful church and 
an ancient town-hall; manufactures 
of lace, thread, linen and cotton goods, 
etc., and a considerable trade. Pop. 
31,655. 

Alnar>a (al-pak'a), a ruminant mam- 

Aipai/d. mal of the camel trib€N and 

genus Auchenia (A. Paco 1, a native of 
the Andes, especially of the mountains of 


Chile and Peru, and so closely allied to 
the llama that by some it is regarded 
rather as a smaller variety than a distinct 
species. It has been domesticated, and 
remains also in a wild state. In form 
and size it approaches the sheep, but has 
a longer neck. It is valued chiefly for its 
long, soft, and silky wool, which is 
straighter than that of the sheep, and very 
strong, and is woven into fabrics of great 
beauty, used for shawls, clothing for 
warm climates, coat-linings, and umbrel¬ 
las, and known by the same name. Its 
flesh is pleasant and wholesome. 

AlnAYin (al-pe'na) a city, capital of 
* Alpena Co., Michigan, on 

Thunder Bay, 125 miles n.e. of Saginaw 
City. It is an important lumber center, 
has extensive fisheries and is a summer 
resort. Pop. 12,706. 

Alpen-stock 

pointed at the end so as to take hold in, 
and give support on, ice and other 
dangerous places in climbing the Alps and 
other high mountains. 

Allies ( a h>)> the name of three deparfr- 
B ments in the southeast of France, 


all more or less covered by the Alps or 
their offshoots:— -Basses-Alpes (bas-alp; 
Lower Alps) has mountains rising to a 
height of 8,000 to 10,000 feet, is drained 
by the Durance and its tributaries, and is 
the most thinly peopled department in 
France : area, 2,685 miles ; capital, Digne, 
Pop. 113,126. Hautes-Alpes (ot-alp; 
Upper Alps), mainly formed out of an¬ 
cient Dauphine, traversed by the Cottian 
and Dauphine Alps (highest summits 
12,000 ft.), drained chiefly by the Du¬ 
rance and its tributaries. It is the low¬ 
est department in France in point of 
absolute population; area, 2,158 miles; 
capital, Gap : pop. 107,498.— Alpes-Mart- 
times (alp-ma-ri-tem; Maritime Alps) 
has the Mediterranean on the south, and 
mainly consists of the territory of Nice, 
ceded to France by Italy in 1860. The 
greater part of the surface is covered by 
the Maritime Alps; the principal river is 
the Var. It produces in the south, 
cereals, vines, olives, oranges, citrons, 
and other fruits; and there are manu¬ 
factories of perfumes, liqueurs, soap, etc., 
and valuable fisheries. It is a favorite 
resort for invalids. Area, 1,442 square 
miles; capital, Nice, pop. 334,007. 

Alpha and Omega < al : fa ’ o-meg'a, 

1 ° or o-mega), the 

first and last letters of the Greek alpha¬ 
bet, sometimes used to signify the begin¬ 
ning and the end, or the first and the last 
of anything; also as a symbol of the 
Divine Being. They were also formerlv 
the symbol of Christianity, and engraved 



Alphabet 


Alphonso 


accordingly on the tombs of the ancient 
Christians. 

Alphabet <“V £*£*%"* 

of the Greek alphabet), the series of 
characters used in writing a language, 
and intended to represent the sounds of 
which it consists. The English alphabet, 
like most of those of modern Europe, is 
derived directly from the Latin, the Latin 
from the ancient Greek, and that from the 
Phoenician, which again is believed to 
have had its origin in the Egyptian 
hieroglyphics, the Hebrew alphabet also 
having the same origin. The names of 
the letters in Phoenician and Hebrew must 
have been almost the same, for the Greek 
names, which, with the letters, were bor¬ 
rowed from the former, differ little from 
the Hebrew. By means of the names 
we may trace the process by which the 
Egyptian characters were transformed 
into letters by the Phoenicians. Some 
Egyptian character would, by its form, 
recall the idea of a house, for example, in 
Phoenician or Hebrew beth. This char¬ 
acter would subsequently come to be used 
wherever the sound b occurred. Its form 
might be afterwards simplified, or even 
completely modified, but the name would 
still remain, as beth still continues the 
Hebrew name for b, and beta the Greek. 
Our letter m, which in Hebrew was called 
mim , water, has still a considerable re¬ 
semblance to the zigzag wavy line which 
had been chosen to represent water, as in 
the zodiacal symbol for Aquarius. The 
letter o, of which the Hebrew name means 
eye, no doubt originally intended to rep¬ 
resent that organ. While the ancient 
Greek alphabet gave rise to the ordinary 
Greek alphabet and the Latin, the Greek 
alphabet of later times furnished elements 
for the Coptic, the Gothic, and the old 
Slavic alphabets. The Latin characters 
are now employed by a great many na¬ 
tions, such as the Italian, the French, the 
Spanish, the Portuguese, the English, the 
Dutch, the German, the Hungarian, the 
Polish, etc., each nation having introduced 
such modifications or additions as are 
necessary to express the sound of the 
language peculiar to it. The Greek 
alphabet originally possessed only sixteen 
letters, though the Phoenician had twenty- 
two. The original Latin alphabet, as it 
is found in the oldest inscriptions, con¬ 
sisted of twenty-one letters; namely, the 
vowels a , e, i, o, and u ( v ), and the con¬ 
sonants 6, c, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, 
x, z. The Anglo-Saxon alphabet had two 
characters for the digraph tli, which were 
unfortunately not retained in later Eng¬ 
lish ; it had also the character ee. It 
wanted j, v, y (consonant), and z. The 


German alphabet consists of the same 
letters as the English, but the sounds of 
some of them are different. Anciently 
certain characters called Runic were 
made use of by the Teutonic nations, to 
which some would attribute an origin 
independent of the Greek and Latin 
alphabets. While the alphabets of the 
west of Europe are derived from the 
Latin,. the Russian, which is very com¬ 
plete, is based on the Greek, with some 
characters borrowed from the Armenian, 
etc. Among Asiatic alphabets, the Ara¬ 
bian (originally of Phoenician origin), has 
played a part analogous to that of the 
Latin in Europe, the conquests of Moham¬ 
medanism having imposed it on the 
Persian, the Turkish, the Hindustani, etc. 
The Sanskrit or Devanagari alphabet is 
one of the most remarkable alphabets of 
the world. As now used it has fourteen 
characters for the vowels and diphthongs, 
and thirty-three for the consonants, be¬ 
sides two other symbols. Our alphabet 
is a very imperfect instrument for what 
it has to perform, being both defective and 
redundant. An alphabet is not essential 
to the writing of a language, since 
ideograms or symbols may be used in¬ 
stead, as in Chinese. See Writing. 

AlDheUS < al - f e'us), now Rufia, the 
* ° largest river of Peloponnesus, 

flowing westwards into the Ionian Sea. 
AlnVinncn (al-fon'so), the name of a 
" number of Portuguese and 

Spanish kings. Among the former may 
be mentioned Alphonso I, the Conqueror, 
first King of Portugal, son of Henry of 
Burgundy, the Conqueror and first Count 
of Portugal; born 1110, fought success¬ 
fully against the Spaniards and the 
Moors, named himself king of Portugal, 
and was as such recognized by the pope; 
died 1185.— Alphonso V, the African, suc¬ 
ceeded his father, Edward I, 1438. Con¬ 
quered Tangiers; died 1481. During his 
reign Prince Henry the Navigator con¬ 
tinued the important voyages of discovery 
already begun by the Portuguese. Under 
him was drawn up an important code of 
laws.—Among kings of Spain may be 
mentioned Alphonso X, King of Castile 
and Leon, surnamed the Astronomer , the 
Philosopher , or the Wise; born in 1226, 
succeeded in 1252. Being grandson of 
Philip of Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick 
Barbarossa, he endeavored to have him¬ 
self elected Emperor of Germany, and in 
1257 succeeded in dividing the election 
with Richard, Earl of Cornwall. On 
Richard’s death in 1272 he again unsuc¬ 
cessfully contested the imperial crown. 
Meantime his throne was endangered by 
conspiracies of the nobles and the attacks 
of the Moors. The Moors he conquered, 




Alpine Crow 


Alps 


but his domestic troubles were less easily 
overcome, and he was finally dethroned 
by his son Sancho, and died two years 
after, 1284. Alphonso was the most 
learned prince of his age. Under his 
direction or superintendence were drawn 
up a celebrated code of laws, valuable 
astronomical tables which go under his 
name (Alphonsine Tables), the first gen¬ 
eral history of Spain in the Castilian 
tongue, and a Spanish translation of the 
Bible.— Alphonso V, of Aragon I of 
Naples and Sicily, born in 1385, was the 
son of Ferdinand I of Aragon, the throne 
of which he ascended in 1416, ruling also 
over Sicily and the island of Sardinia. 
Queen Joanna of Naples had promised to 
make him her heir, but at her death in 
1435 had left her dominions to Ren£ of 
Anjou. Alphonso now proceeded to take 
possession of Naples by force, which he 
succeeded in doing in 1442, and reigned 
till his death in 1458. He was an 
enlightened patron of literary men, by 
whom, in the latter part of his reign, 
his court was thronged.— Alphonso XII, 
King of Spain, the only son of Queen 
Isabella II and her cousin Francis of 
Assisi, was born in 1857 and died in 1885. 
He left Spain with his mother when she 
was driven from the throne by the revolu¬ 
tion of 1868, and till 1874 resided partly 
in France, partly in Austria. In the 
latter year he studied for a time at the 
English military college, Sandhurst, being 
then known as Prince of the Asturias. 
His mother had given up her claims to the 
throne in 1870 in his favor, and in 1874 
Alphonso came forward himself as claim¬ 
ant, and in the end of the year was 
proclaimed by General Martinez Campos 
as king. He now passed over into Spain 
and was enthusiastically received, most 
of the Spaniards being by this time tired 
of the republican government, which had 
failed to put down the Carlist party. 
Alphonso was successful in bringing the 
Carlist struggle to an end (1876), and 
thenceforth he reigned with little disturb¬ 
ance. He married first his cousin Maria 
de las Mercedes; second, Maria Chris¬ 
tiana, archduchess of Austria.— Al¬ 
phonso XIII, King of Spain, posthumous 
son of Alphonso XII. He remained un¬ 
der the regency of his mother, Maria 
Christiana, until May 17, 1902, when he 
assumed the duties of the throne. He 
married in 1906 the English princess 
Victoria Eugenie, niece of Edward VII. 


Alpine Crow, A , LPI . NE chough <r,,r- 

r 9 rhocorax alpinus), a 

European bird closely akin to the chough 
of England. 


Alpine Plants, 


those plants whose 


habitat is in the neighborhood of the 
snow, on mountains partly covered with 
it all the year round. As the height of 
the snow-line varies according to the 
latitude and local conditions, so also does 
the height at which these plants grow. 
The mean height for the alpine plants of 
Central Europe is about 6,000 feet; but it 
rises in parts of the Alps and in the 
Pyrenees to 9,000, or even more. The 
high grounds clear of snow among these 
mountains present a very well marked 
flora, the general characters of the plants 
being a low dwarfish habit, a tendency to 
form thick turfs, stems partly or wholly 
woody, and large brilliantly-colored and 
often very sweet-smelling flowers. They 
are also often closely covered with woolly 
hairs. In the Alps of Middle Europe 
the eye is at once attracted by gentians, 
saxifrages, rhododendrons, primroses of 
different kinds, etc. Ferns and mosses of 
many kinds also characterize these 
regions. 

Alpine Warbler 

the same genus as the hedge-sparrow. 

Alpin'ia, fcjgj- ° f «•*“*■• 

Alt)S behest and most extensive 
9 system of mountains in Europe, 
included between lat. 44° and 48° n., and 
Ion. 5° and 18° E., occupying much of 
Northern Italy, several departments of 
France, nearly the whole of Switzerland, 
and a large part of Austria, while its 
extensive ramifications connect it with 
nearly all the mountain systems of 
Europe. The culminating peak is Mont 
Blanc, 15,781 feet high, though the true 
center is the St. Gothard, or the moun¬ 
tain mass to which it belongs, and from 
whose slopes flow, either directly or by 
affluents, the great rivers of Central 
Europe, the Danube, Rhine, Rhone, and 
Po. Round the northern frontier of Italy 
the Alps form a remarkable barrier, shut¬ 
ting it off at all points from the mainland 
of Europe, so that, as a rule, it can only 
be approached from France, Germany, or 
Switzerland, through high and difficult 
passes. In the west this barrier ap¬ 
proaches close to the Mediterranean coast, 
and near Nice there is left a free passage 
into the Italian peninsula between the 
mountains and the sea. From this point 
eastward the chain proceeds along the 
coast till it forms a junction with the 
Apennines. In the opposite direction it 
proceeds northwest, and afterwards north 
to Mont Blanc, on the boundaries of 
France and Italy; it then turns north¬ 
east and runs generally in this direction 
to the Gross Glockner, in Central Tyrol, 
between the rivers Drave and the Salza, 



Alps 


Alps 


where it divides into two branches, the 
northern proceeding northeast towards 
Vienna, the southern towards the Balkan 
Peninsula. The principal valleys of the 
Alps run mainly in a direction nearly 
parallel with the principal ranges, and 
therefore east and west. The transverse 
valleys are commonly shorter, and fre¬ 
quently lead up through a narrow gorge 
to a depression in the main ridge between 
two adjacent peaks. These are the passes 
or cols , which may usually be found by 
tracing a stream which descends from the 
mountains up to its source. 

The Alps in their various great divi¬ 
sions receive different names. The Mari¬ 
time Alps, so called from their proximity 
to the Mediterranean, extend westward 
from their junction with the Apennines 
for a distance of about 100 miles; 
principal pass, the Col di Tende (6,158 
feet), which was made practicable for 
carriages by Napoleon I. Proceeding 
northward the next group consists of the 
Cottian Alps, length about 60 miles. 
Next come the Graian Alps, 50 miles long, 
with extensive ramifications in Savoie and 
Piedmont. To this group belongs Mont 
Cenis (6,765 feet), over which a carriage 
road was constructed by Napoleon I, 
while a railway now passes through the 
mountain by a tunnel nearly 8 miles long. 
These three divisions of the Alps are 
often classed together as the Western 
Alps, while the portion of the system 
immediately east of this forms the Central 
Alps. The Pennine Alps form the loftiest 
portion of the whole system, having Mont 
Blanc (in France) at one extremity, and 
Monte Rosa at the other (60 miles), and 
including the Alps of Savoy and the 
Valais. In the east the valley of the 
upper Rhone separates the Pennine Alps 
from the great chain of the Bernese Alps 
running nearly parallel, the great peaks 
of the two ranges being about 20 miles 
apart. The pass of Great St. Bernard 
is celebrated for its hospice. The most 
easterly pass is the Simplon, 6,595 feet, 
with a carriage road made by Napoleon I. 
Further east are the Lepontine Alps, 
divided into several groups. From this 
run northward and southward numerous 
streams, the latter to the valleys in which 
lie the lakes Maggiore, Como, etc. The 
principal pass is the St. Gothard (6,936 
feet), over which passes a carriage road 
to Italy, while through this mountain 
mass a railway tunnel more than 9 miles 
long has been opened. Highest peaks: 
Todi, 11,8S7 feet; Monte Leone, 11,696. 
The Rhcetian Alps, extending east to 
about lat. 12° 30', are the most easterly 
of the Central Alps, and are divided into 
two portions by the Engadine, or valley 

9—1 


of the Inn, and also broken by the valley 
of the Adige. The Brenner Pass (4,588 
feet), from Verona to Innsbruck, and be¬ 
tween the Central and the Eastern Alps, 
is crossed by a railway. On the railway 
from Innsbruck to the Lake of Constance 
is the Arlberg Tunnel, over 6 miles long. 
The Eastern Alps form the broadest and 
lowest portion of the system, and embrace 
the Noric Alps, the Carnic Alps, the 
Julian Alps, etc.; highest peak, the Gross 
Glockner, 12,405 feet. The height of the 
southeastern continuations of the Alps 
rapidly diminishes, and they lose them¬ 
selves in ranges having nothing in com¬ 
mon with the great mountain masses 
which distinguish the center of the system. 

The Alps are very rich in lakes and 
streams. Among the chief of the former 
are the lakes of Geneva, Constance, 
Zurich, Thun, Brienz, on the north side; 
on the south Maggiore, Como, Lugano, 
Garda, etc. The drainage is carried to 
the North Sea by the Rhine, to the 
Mediterranean by the Rhone, to the 
Adriatic by the Po, to the Black Sea by 
the Danube. 

In the lower valleys of the Alps the 
mean temperature ranges from 50° to 60°. 
Half-way up the Alps it averages about 
32°—a height which, in the snowy 
regions, it never reaches. But even where 
the temperature is lowest the solar 
radiation produced by the rocks and snow 
is often so great as to raise the photom¬ 
eter to 120° and even higher. The ex¬ 
hilarating and invigorating nature of the 
climate in the upper regions during sum¬ 
mer has been acknowledged by all. 

In respect to vegetation the Alps have 
been divided into six zones, depending 
on height modified by exposure and local 
circumstances. The first is the olive 
region. This tree flourishes better on 
sheltered slopes of the mountains than on 
the plains of Northern Italy. The vine, 
which bears greater winter cold, dis¬ 
tinguishes the second zone. On slopes 
exposed to the sun it flourishes to a con¬ 
siderable height. The third is called the 
mountainous region. Cereals and decid¬ 
uous trees form the distinguished features 
of its vegetation. The mean temperature 
about equals that of Great Britain, but 
the extremes are greater. The fourth 
region is the sub-Alpine or coniferous. 
Here are vast forests of pines of various 
species. Most of the Alpine villages are 
in the last two regions. On the northern 
slopes pines grow to 6.000, and on the 
southern slopes to 7,000 feet above the 
level of the sea. This is also the region 
of the lower or permanent pastures where 
the flocks are fed in winter. The fifth 
is the pasture region, the term alp 



Alps 


Alsatia 


being used in the local sense of high 
pasture grounds. It extends from the 
uppermost limit of trees to the region 
of perpetual snow. Here there are 
shrubs, rhododendrons, junipers, bil¬ 
berries, and dwarf willows, etc. The 
sixth zone is the region of perpetual snow. 
The line of snow varies, according to 
seasons and localities, from 8,000 to 9,500 
feet, but the line is not continuous, being 
often broken in upon. From this zone 
descend the glaciers, the most accessible 
of these being those of Aletsch, Chamonix, 
and Zermatt. These feed the Swiss lakes 
and give rise to the Rhine, Rhone and 
other rivers. Few flowering plants ex¬ 
tend above 10,000 feet, but they have 
been found as high as 12,000 feet. 

At this great elevation are found the 
wild goat and the chamois. In summer 
the high mountain pastures are covered 
with large flocks of cattle, sheep, and 
goats, which are in winter removed to a 
lower and warmer level. The marmot, 
and white or Alpine hare, inhabit both 
the snowy and the woody regions. Lower 
down are found the wild cat, fox, lynx, 
bear, and wolf; the last two are now 
extremely rare. The vulture, eagle, and 
other birds of prey frequent the highest 
elevations, the ptarmigan seeks its food 
and shelter among the diminutive plants 
that border upon the snow-line. Ex¬ 
cellent trout and other fish are found; but 
the most elevated lakes are, from their 
low temperature, entirely destitute of 
fish. 

The geological structure of the Alps is 
highly involved, and is far, as yet, from 
being thoroughly investigated or under¬ 
stood. In general three zones can be 
distinguished, a central, in which crys¬ 
talline rocks prevail, and two exterior 
zones, in which sedimentary rocks pre¬ 
dominate. The rocks of the central zone 
consist of granite, gneiss, hornblende, 
mica slate, and other slates and schists. 
In the western Alps there are also con¬ 
siderable elevations in the central zone 
that belong to the Jurassic (Oolite) and 
Cretaceous formations. From the disposi¬ 
tion of the beds, which are broken, tilted, 
and distorted on a gigantic scale, the 
Alps appear to have been formed by a 
succession of disruptions and elevations 
extending over a very protracted period. 
Among the minerals that are obtained are 
iron and lead, gold, silver, copper, zinc, 
alum, and coal. 

For railway purposes the Alps have 
been pierced by four long tunnels, the 
Alberg, 6% miles; the Mont Cenis, 8 
miles; the St. Gothard, miles; and 
the Simplon, 12 y 2 miles, the last open¬ 
ed to travel in 1905. 


A1-rnn*arras (al-pb-/iar riis), a district 
mpujarrab of Spain> in Andalusia, 

between the Sierra Nevada and the Medi¬ 
terranean, mountainous, but with rich 
and well-cultivated valleys yielding grain, 
vines, olives, and other fruits. The in¬ 
habitants are Christianized descendants 
of the Moors. 


A1 milfoil ( a l'ki-fo), a sort of lead ore 

xxxtjux v/u. uged by potters as a g reen 
varnish or glaze. 

AIsqpp (al-sas; German, Elsass ), be- 
xii&cU/C j ore t k e French revolution a 


province of France, on the Rhine, after¬ 
wards constituting the French depart¬ 
ments of Haut and Bas-Rhin, and sub¬ 
sequently to the Franco-Prussian war of 
1870-71 reunited to Germany, and in¬ 
corporated in the province of Elsass- 
Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine). Alsace is 
generally a level country, though there are 
several ranges of low hills richly wooded. 
The principal river is the Ill. Corn, 
flax, tobacco, grapes, and other fruits 
are grown. Area, 3,198 sq. miles; popu¬ 
lation 1,153.335. Alsace was originally a 
part of ancient Gaul. It afterwards be¬ 
came a dukedom of the German empire. 
In 1268, the line of its dukes becoming 
extinct, it was parceled out to several 
members of the empire. By the peace of 
Westphalia, in 1648, a great part of it 
was ceded to France, which afterwards 
seized the rest of it, this seizure, being 
recognized by the peace of Ryswick, in 
1697. Henceforth, till their successes in 
1870, the Germans used to look with long¬ 
ing eyes on Alsace. The inhabitants 
mostly speak German, and are of German 
race. Strasburg is the chief city. The 
chief productions are wine, hemp, flax, 
tobacco, madder, copper, iron, etc. See 
Alsace-Lorraine. 


Alsace-Lorraine (*i-sasior-ran'), a 

province (Reichs- 
land, “imperial territory,”) of Germany, 
on the east of France, partly bounded by 
the Rhine; area, 5,600 sq. miles, of which 
Alsace occupies 3,198 and Lorraine 2,402. 
It is under a lieutenant-governor, and is 
divided into the districts of Lower and 
Upper Alsace and Lorraine, at the head 
of each being a president. Tbe three 
chief towns are Strasburg, Miihlhausen, 
and Metz. Pop. 1910, 1,871,702. of 
whom over 200,000 are of French origin. 
Alcatia (al-sa'shya), formerly a cant 
xixaana name for Whitefriars, a dis¬ 
trict in London between the Thames and 
Fleet Street, and adjoining the Temple, 
which, possessing certain privileges of 
sanctuary, became for that reason a nest 
of mischievous characters, who were gen¬ 
erally obnoxious to the law. These privi¬ 
leges were abolished in 1697. The name 




Alsen 


Altazimuth 


Alsatia is a Latinized form of Alsace, Altar (ftl'tar), aQ y pile or structure 
which, being on the frontiers of France raised above the ground for re- 

and Germany, was a harbor for neces- ceiving sacrifices to some divinity. The 
sitous or troublesome characters from Greek and Roman altars were various in 
both countries. 

Alseil ( a l' zen )* a n island of 
Prussia on the east 
coast of Schleswig-H o 1 s t e i n, 
length, 20 miles; breadth, from 
5 to 7 miles, diversified with 
forests, lakes, well-cul t i v a t e d 
fields, orchards, and towns. 

A1 Si rat (se'rat), in Moham- 
iu dirat medan b e j j e f t h e 

bridge extending over the abyss 
of hell which must be crossed by 
every one on his journey to 
heaven. It is finer than a hair, 
as sharp as the edge of a sword, 
and beset with thorns on either 
side. The righteous will pass 



Altars.—1, Assyrian. 2 , Grecian. 8, Roman. 


over with ease and swiftness, but the form, and often highly ornamental; in 


wicked will fall into hell below. 

Alstr oemeria ( ais-tre-me'ri-a >, 


temples they were usually placed before 
a the statue of the god. In the Jewish 
genus of South Amer- ceremonial the altar held an important 
ican plants, order Amaryllidese, some of place, and was associated with many of 
them cultivated in European greenhouses the most significant rites of religion, 
and gardens. A. Salsilla and A. ovdta Two altars were erected in the tabernacle 


are cultivated for their edible tubers. 

Altai Mountains an 


im- 


in the wilderness, and the same number 
in the temple, according to instructions 


portant Asiatic given to Moses in Mt. Sinai. These were 
system on the borders of Siberia and called the altar of burnt-offering and the 
Mongolia, partly in Russia and partly in altar of incense. In some sections of the 
Chinese territory, between lat. 46° and Christian church the communion-table, 
53° n., Ion. 83° and 91° e., but having or table on which the eucharist is placed, 
great eastern extensions. The Russian is called an altar. In the primitive 
portion is comprised in the governments church it was a table of wood, but subse- 
of Tomsk and Semipalatinsk, the Chinese quently stone and metal were introduced 
in Dsungaria. The rivers of this region, with rich ornaments, sculpture, and paint- 
which are large and numerous, are mainly i n g. After the introduction of Gothic art 
headwaters of the Obi and Irtish. The the altar frequently became a lofty and 
mountain scenery is generally grand and most elaborate structure. Originally 
interesting. The highest summit is there was but one altar in a church, but 
Byeluka (‘ white mountain, from its later there might be several in a large 
snowy top), height 11,000 feet. The c h U rch, the chief or high altar standing 
area covered by perpetual snow is very at the east end 0ver an altar there is 
considerable, and glaciers occupy a wide 0 ft e n a painting (an altar-piece ), and be- 
extent. In the high lands the winter is b j nd there may be an ornamental altar- 
very severe; but on the whole the climate gcreen separat ing the choir from the east 
is comparatively mild and is also healthy. end of the chu rch. Lights are often 
The vegetation is varied and abundant. placed 0Q or near the a i tar _i n English 
The mountain forests are composed of cburcbes t hey are forbidden to be placed 
birch, alder, aspen, fir, larch, stone-pine, .. J 

etc. The wild sheep has here its native 
home, and several kinds of deer occur. 

The Altai is exceedingly rich in minerals, ...... , , 

including gold, silver, copper, and iron, tical circle with a telescope so arranged 
The name Altai means ‘gold mountain.’ as to be capable of being turned round 
The inhabitants are chiefly Russians and horizontally to any point of the compass, 
Kalmuks. The chief town is Barnaul. and so differing from a transit-circle , 
Altflmnra (al-tamu'ra), a town of which is fixed in the meridian. The 
g outb it a ly, prov. of Bari, altazimuth is brought to bear upon objects 
at the foot of the Apennines, walled, well by motions affecting their altitude and 
built, and containing a magnificent cathe- azimuth. Called also Altitude-and-azi- 


Al+arimntTi (alt-az'i-muth; abbrev. 
AitaZimUt & a i t it U(le -azimuth), a v 


of 

ver- 


dral. Pop. 22,729. 


muth instrument. 



























Altdorf 


Alto-rilievo 


Altdorf. See Altorf. 

Alfpvio (al'te-na), a town of Prussia, 
xxx tend Westphalia> 40 miIes N> N> E> of 

Cologne; wire-works, rolling-mills, chain- 
works, manufactories of needles, pins, 
thimbles, etc. Pop. 12,769. 

AltenburP 1 (al'ten-berg), a town of 
ziiiemnug Germany, capital of 

Saxe-Altenburg, 23 miles south of Leip¬ 
zig. It has some fine streets and many 
handsome edifices, including a splendid 
palace; manufactures of cigars, woolen 
yarn, gloves, hats, musical instruments, 
glass, brushes, etc. Pop. 38,811. 
Alteratives (al'ter-a-tivs),. medicines, 

as mercury, iodine, etc., 
which, administered in small doses, grad¬ 
ually induce a change in the habit or 
constitution, and imperceptibly alter dis¬ 
ordered secretions and actions, and re¬ 
store healthy functions without producing 
any sensible evacuation by perspiration, 
purging, or vomiting. 

Alfpr pern (al'ter e'go; Latin, ‘ an- 
xxitci cgu other j 5) a gecond gelf> 

one who represents another in every re¬ 
spect. This term was formerly given, in 
the official style of the Kingdom of the 
Two Sicilies, to a substitute, appointed 
by the king to manage the affairs of the 
kingdom, with full royal power. 
Alternate (al-ter'nat), in botany, 
placed on opposite sides 
of an axis at a different level, as leaves.— 
Alternate generation, the reproduction of 
young not resembling their parents, but 
their grandparents, continuously, as in 
the jelly-fishes, etc. See Generation, 
Alternate. 

Althaea ( „ a ’; ths ' a > ® «“ us , ot 

See Hollyhock and Marsh¬ 
mallow. 

Altiscope (al'ti-sk5p), an instrument, 
* consisting of an arrange¬ 
ment of mirrors in a vertical framework, 
by means of which a person is enabled 
to overlook an object (a parapet, for 
instance) intervening between himself 
and any view that he desires to see, the 
picture of the latter being reflected from 
a higher to a lower mirror, where it is 
seen by the observer. 

Altitude in mathematics 

the perpendicular height of 
the vertex or apex of a plane figure or 
solid above the base. In astronomy it is 
the vertical height of any point or body 
above the horizon. It is measured or 
estimated by the angle subtended between 
the object and the plane of the horizon, 
and may be either true or apparent. 
The apparent altitude is that which is 
obtained immediately from observation; 
the true altitude, that which results from 


correcting the apparent altitude, by mak¬ 
ing allowance for parallax, refraction, etc. 

Altitude-and-azimuth Instru¬ 
ment. See Altazimuth. 

AltO * n music, the highest sing¬ 

ing voice of a male adult, the 
lowest of a boy or a woman, being in the 
latter the same as contralto. The alto, 
or counter-tenor, is not a natural voice, 
but a development of the falsetto. It is 
almost confined to English singers, and 
the only music written for it is by English 
composers. It is especially used in 
cathedral compositions and glees. 

AltOll ( a ^ tun )» a town of England, 
in Hampshire, 16 miles n. e. 
of Winchester, famous for its ale. Pop. 
5555. 

Alton a . town Illinois, on the Mis- 
* sissippi near the mouth of the 
Missouri, and 25 miles N. of St. Louis; 
with a state penitentiary, several mills 
and manufactories, and in the neighbor¬ 
hood lime and building stone. Pop. 
17,528. 

Altona (STto-na), an important com¬ 
mercial city in the Prus¬ 
sian province of Schleswig-Holstein, on 
the right bank of the Elbe, adjoining 
Hamburg, with which it virtually forms 
one city. It is a free port, and its com¬ 
merce, both inland and foreign, is large, 
being quite identified with that of Ham¬ 
burg. Pop. 172,533. 

Altoona ( al 't6'na), a city of Penn¬ 
sylvania, at the eastern base 
of the Alleghanies, 244 miles west of 
Philadelphia, with the large machine- 
shops and locomotive factories of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Also 
planing mills, silk mills, glass works, etc. 
Pop. 52,127. 

Al'torf, a small tovrn of Switzerland. 

9 capital of the canton of 
Uri, beautifully situated, near the Lake of 
Luzern, amid gardens and orchards, and 
memorable as the place where, according 
to legend, Tell shot the apple from his 
son’s head. A colossal statue of Tell 
now stands here. Pop. 3147. 
Alto-rilievo (aj'to-re-le-a'vo), high 

relief, a term applied in 
regard to sculptured figures to express 
that they stand out boldly from the back¬ 
ground, projecting more than half their 
thickness, without being entirely detached. 
In mezzo-rilievo, or middle relief, the pro¬ 
jection is one-half, and in basso-rilievo, 
or bas-relief, less than one-half. Alto- 
rilievo is further distinguished from 
mezzo-rilievo by some portion of the 
figures standing usually quite free from 
the surface on which they are carved, 



Altotting 


Aluminium 


while in the latter the figures, though 
rounded, are not detached in any part. 



Alto-rilievo—Battle of Centaurs and Lapithee. 

AltrittinP’ (41t-eut'ing), a famous 
xxiiutmig place of pilffrimagei in 

Bavaria, 52 miles e. n. e. of Munich, near 
the Inn, with an ancient image of the 
Madonna (the Black Virgin) in a chapel 
dating from 696, and containing a rich 
treasure in gold and precious stones; and 
another chapel in which Tilly was buried. 
Pop. 4,344. 

Altranstadt <|lt'rtn-stet), a village 

of Saxony, where a 

treaty was concluded between Charles 

XII, King of Sweden, and Augustus, 

Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 

September 24, 1706, by which the latter 

resigned the crown of Poland. 

Alt/riu P’ham or Altrincham, a 
X11L llligllcUll, tQwn of Eng iand, in 

Cheshire, 8 miles s. w. of Manchester; 
large quantities of fruit and vegetables 
are raised; and there are several indus¬ 
trial works. Pop. 17,816. 

Al+rniom (al'tru-izm), a term first 
iiliruibiu employed by the French 

philosopher Comte, to signify devotion to 
others or to humanity and now in common 
use; the opposite of selfishness or egoism. 
Alfwa QQpr (alt'v&s-er), a town of 

Aiiwasser Prussia> in gilesia> 35 

miles s. w. of Breslau; here are made 
porcelain, machinery, iron, yarn, mirrors, 
etc. Pop. 12,144. 

Al'um a well-known crystalline as- 
9 tringent substance with a sweet¬ 
ish taste, a double sulphate of potassium 
and aluminium with a certain quantity 
of water of crystallization. It crystallizes 
in regular octahedrons. Its solution red¬ 
dens vegetable blues. Exposed to heat its 
water of crystallization is driven off, and 
it becomes light and spongy with slightly 
corrosive properties, and is used as a 
caustic under the name of "burnt alum. 
Alum is prepared in Great Britain at 


Whitby from alum-slate, where it forms 
the cliffs for miles, and at Hurlett and 
Campsie, near Glasgow, from bituminous 
alum-shale and slate-clay, obtained from 
old coal-pits. It is also prepared near 
Rome from alum-stone. Common alum 
is strictly potash alum; other two vari¬ 
eties are soda alum and ammonia alum, 
both similar in properties. The impor¬ 
tance of alum in the arts is very great, 
and its annual consumption is immense. 
It is employed to increase the hardness 
of tallow, to remove greasiness from print¬ 
ers’ cushions and blocks in calico manu¬ 
factories ; in dyeing it is largely used as 
a mordant. It is also largely used in the 
composition of crayons, in tannery, and in 
medicine (as an astringent and styptic). 
Wood and paper are dipped in a solution 
of alum to render them less combustible. 

Alumbag’h U-lam-bag'), a palace 
xxiu agxi and connected buildings 

in Hindustan, about 4 miles south of 
Lucknow. On the outbreak of the Indian 
mutiny it was occupied by the revolted 
Sepoys, and converted into a fort. On 
the 23d of September, 1857, it was cap¬ 
tured by the British, and during the fol¬ 
lowing winter a British garrison, under 
Sir James Outram, held out here, though 
repeatedly attacked by overwhelming 
numbers of the rebels, till in March, 1858, 
it was finally relieved. Sir Henry Have¬ 
lock was buried within the grounds. 

Alum in B (al-u'mi-na, ALA), the 
Xll Ulllllld gingle oxide of the metal 

aluminium. As found native it is called 
corundum, when crystallized ruby or sap¬ 
phire, when amorphous emery. It is next 
to the diamond in hardness. In combina¬ 
tion with silica it is one of the most 
widely distributed of substances, as it 
enters in large quantity into the com¬ 
position of granite, traps, slates, schists, 
clays, loams, and other rocks. The por¬ 
celain clays and kaolins contain about 
half their weight of this earth, to which 
they owe their most valuable properties. 
It has a strong affinity for coloring mat¬ 
ters, which causes it to be employed in the 
preparation of the colors called lakes in 
dyeing and calico-printing. It combines 
with the acids and forms numerous salts, 
the most important of which are the sul¬ 
phate (see Alum) and acetate, the latter 
of extensive use as a mordant. 
Alnminirim (al-um-In'i-um, symbol 

Aluminium A1> atomic weight 270K 

a metal discovered in 1827, but nowhere 
found native, though as the base of 
alumina (which see) it is abundantly 
distributed. The mineral cryolite—& 
fluoride of aluminium and sodium—which 
is brought from Greenland, is one of the 
chief sources of aluminium. It is a 









Alum-root 


Alvarado 


shining white metal, of a color between Charles V in France, Italy, Africa, Ilun- 
silver and platinum, very light, weighing gary, and Germany. He. is more es- 
less than glass, and about one-fourth of pecially remembered for his bloody and 
silver (specific gravity, 2.56 cast, 2.67 tyrannical government of the Netherlands 
hammered), not liable to tarnish or un- (1567-73), which had revolted, and which 
dergo oxidation in the air, very ductile he was commissioned by Philip II to 
and malleable, and remarkably sonorous, reduce to entire subjection to Spain. 
It forms several useful alloys with iron Among his first proceedings was to es- 
and copper; one of the latter ( alumin - tablish the ‘Council of Blood,’ a tribunal 
ium gold) much resembles gold, and is which condemned, without discrimination, 
made into cheap trinkets. Another, all whose opinions were suspected and 
known as aluminium bronze , possesses whose riches were coveted. The present 
great hardness and tenacity. Spoons, and absent, the living and the dead, were 
tea and coffee pots, dish-covers, musical subjected to trial and their property con- 
and mathematical instruments, etc., are fiscated. Many merchants and mechanics 
made of aluminium. Within a few years emigrated to England ; people by hun- 
the manufacture of aluminium has been dreds of thousands abandoned their coun- 
revolutionized by the employment of elec- try. The Counts of Egmont and Horn, 
tricity as the reducing agent. By the and other men of rank, were executed, and 
method of electric deposition great.quan- William and Louis of Orange had to save 
tities of nearly pure metal are yielded, themselves in Germany. The most op- 
and its use has greatly extended, the pressive taxes were imposed, and trade 
cost of extraction being very greatly was brought completely to a standstill, 
reduced. Popularly known as alumi- As a reward for his services to the faith 
num. . the pope presented him with a consecrated 

Alum-root name gi yen to two hat and sword, a distinction previously 
9 plants of the United conferred only on princes. Resistance 
States, greatly different, but both having was quelled only for a time, and soon the 
roots of remarkable astringency, which provinces of Holland and Zealand revolted 
are used for medical purposes. One of against his tyranny. A fleet which was 
these is Geranium maculatum ; the other fitted out at his command was annihilated, 
is Heacliera Americana, a . plant of the and he was everywhere met with insuper- 
Saxifrage order. Its root is a powerful able courage. Hopeless of finally sub¬ 
styptic and is used to form a wash for duing the country he asked to be recalled, 
wounds and obstinate ulcers. and accordingly, in December, 1573, Alva 

Alum-slate Alum-schist, a slaty left the country, in which, as he himself 
9 rock from which much boasted, he had executed 18,000 men. 
alum is prepared; color grayish, bluish, He was received with distinction in 
or iron-black; often possessed of a glossy Madrid, but did not long enjoy his former 
or shining luster; chiefly composed of credit. He had the honor, however, be- 
clay (silicate of alumina), with variable fore his death (which took place in 1582) 
proportions of sulphide of iron (iron of reducing all Portugal to subjection to 
pyrites), lime, bitumen, and magnesia. . his sovereign. It is said of him that 
Alum-Stone a m i nera l. of a grayish during sixty years of warfare he never 
9 or yellowish-white col- lost a battle and was never taken by sur- 
or, approaching to earthy in its. com- prise. 

position, from which (in Italy) is ob- Alvarado (al-va-ra'do), Pedro de, one 
tained a very pure alum by simply sub- of the Spanish ‘ conquis- 

jecting it to roasting and lixiviation. tadors,’ was born towards the end of the 
AlunnO ( a ‘lu'n5), Niccolo (real fifteenth century, and died in 1541. 

name Niccold di Liberatore), Having crossed the Atlantic, he was asso- 
an Italian painter of the fifteenth century, ciated (1519) with Cortez in his expedi¬ 
te founder of the Umbrian School; born tion to conquer Mexico; and was en- 
in Foligno about 1430, died 1502. trusted with important operations. In 

AFva a town of Scotland > Stirling- July, 1520, during the disastrous retreat 
9 shire, 7 miles n. e. of Stirling, from the capital after the death of Mon¬ 
in a detached portion of the county, tezuma, the perilous command of the rear- 
surrounded by Clackmannan and Perth- guard was assigned to Alvarado. On his 
shire; manufactures of woolen shawls, return to Spain he was received with 
plaids, etc. honor by Charles V, who made him gov- 

Al'va or Al ' ba ’ Ferdinand Alvarez, ernor of Guatemala, which he had him- 
9 Duke of, Spanish statesman self conquered. To this was subsequently 
and general under Charles V and Philip added Honduras. He continued to add to 
II; was born in 1508; early embraced the the Spanish dominions in America till 
military career, and fought in the wars of his death. 



Alvarez 


Amalgam 


AIvq TP? (al’va-reth), Don Jose, a 
a Spanish sculptor ; born 1768, 
died 1827. His works are characterized 
by truth to nature, dignity and feeling, 
one of the chief representing a scene in 
the defense of Saragossa. 

Alvpnlns (al-ve'o-lus), one of the 
XliVCUiUb sockets in which the teeth 

of mammals are fixed. Hence alveolar 
arches, the parts of the jaws containing 
these sockets. 

Alwar («Lwar'), a state of north- 
xiiwclj. wes t ern Hindustan, in Rajpu- 

tana; area, 3,024 square miles; surface 
generally elevated and rugged, and much 
of it of an arid description, though water 
is generally found on the plains by dig¬ 
ging a little beneath the surface, and the 
means of irrigation being thus provided, 
the soil, though sandy, is highly produc¬ 
tive. This semi-independent state has as 
its ruler a rajah with a revenue of about 
$1,000,000; military force, about 5,000 in¬ 
fantry and 2000 cavalry. Pop. (1901) 
828,487.— Alwar, the capital, is situated 
at the base of a rocky hill crowned by a 
fort, 80 miles s. s. w. of Delhi, surrounded 
by a moat and rampart, and poorly built, 
but with fine surroundings; contains the 
rajah’s palace and a few other good build¬ 
ings. Pop. 56,771. 

Aluccnm (a-lls'sum), a genus of cru- 
XliybbUlll ciferous plants, several 

species of which are cultivated on account 
of their white or yellow-colored flowers; 
madwort. 

Amad'avat ( E »**?lda amand&va), a 

small Indian singing bird 
allied to the finches and buntings ; sober- 
colored, often kept in cages. 

AmarlpiiQ (a-ma-da'us), the name of 
xiiiictucua several counts 0 f Savoy. 

The first was the son of Humbert I, and 
succeeded him in 1048, dying about 1078; 
others who have occupied an important 
place in history are the following:— 
Amadeus V, ‘ the Great,’ succeeded in 
1285, gained distinguished honor in de¬ 
fending Rhodes against the Turks, in¬ 
creased his possessions by marriage and 
war, was made a prince of the empire, 
died in 1323.— Amadeus VIII succeeded 
his father, Amadeus VII, in 1391, and 
had his title raised to that of duke by 
the Emperor Sigismund. He was chosen 
regent of Piedmont; but after this eleva¬ 
tion retired from his throne and family 
into a religious house. He now aspired to 
the papacy, and was chosen by the Coun¬ 
cil of Basel (1439), becoming pope under 
the name of Felix V, though he had never 
taken holy orders. He resigned in 1449, 
and died in 1451. 

Duke of Aosta, second 

iiiiidue ub, gon of yictor Emmanue i 


of Italy, and uncle of the present king, 
was born in 1845, and was chosen by the 
Cortes King of Spain in 1870, Queen 
Isabella having had to leave the country 
in 1868. His position was far from com¬ 
fortable, however, and perceiving that, as 
a member of a foreign dynasty, he had 
little hope of becoming acceptable to all 
parties in the state, he abdicated in 1873 
and returned to Italy. Died 1890. 
Amarlp'nQ Lake, a large salt lake or 

iimaae ub, salt swamp nearly in the 

center of Australia. 

Amadis ( am ' a -dis), a name belonging 
to a number of heroes in the 
romances of chivalry, Amadis de Gaul 
being the greatest among them, and rep¬ 
resented as the progenitor of the whole. 
The Spanish series of Amadis romances 
is the oldest. It is comprised in fourteen 
books, of which the first four narrate 
the adventures of Amadis de Gaul, this 
portion of the series having originated 
about the end of the thirteenth or begin¬ 
ning of the fourteenth century, and the 
subsequent books being added by various 
hands. An abridged English translation 
of Amadis of Gaul was published by 
Southey in 1803. 

Amadnn (am'a-do), a name of several 
fungi, genus Polyporus , of a 
leathery appearance, growing on trees. 
See German Tinder. 

Amao’Pr (am'a-ger), a small Danish 
® island in the Sound, opposite 
Copenhagen, part of which is situated on 
it. 

Amako'sa, Kafflr tr!bes of 

Amnlplritpc (a-mal'e-kits), a Semitic 

iimaieKites race occupying the pe _ 

ninsula between Egypt and Palestine, 
named after a grandson of Esau. They 
were denounced by Moses for their hostil¬ 
ity to the Israelites during their journey 
through the wilderness, and they seem 
to have been all but exterminated by Saul 
and David. 

Amalfi (&-mal'fi) a seaport in South- 
^ a ern Italy, on the Gulf of 
Salerno, 23 miles from Naples, the seat 
of a bishop; formerly a place of great 
commercial importance, in the middle ages 
enjoying a republican constitution of its 
own. Here arose the Amalfian Code of 
maritime law. Pop. 7,368. 

Amalgam (a;fflal'gam), a name ap- 
° plied to the alloys of mer¬ 
cury with the other metals. One of them 
is the amalgam of mercury with tin, which 
is used to silver looking-glasses. Mercury 
unites very readily with gold and silver 
at ordinary temperatures, and advantage 
is taken of this to separate them from 
their ores, the process being called amal- 




Amanita 


Amatitlan 


gamation. The mercury being properly 
applied dissolves and combines with the 
precious metal and separates it from the 
waste matters, and is itself easily driven 
off by heat. 





The Cathedral, Amalfi. 


Amanita (a-ma-nl'ta), a genus of 

Aiiictiii fungi> one species of which 

A. muscaria, or fly-agaric, is extremely 
poisonous. 

Ama'nn<s a branch of the Taurus 
9 Mountains in Asia Minor. 

Amarantliacese 

nat. order of apetalous plants, chiefly 
inhabiting tropical countries, where they 
are often troublesome weeds. They are 
remarkable for the white or sometimes 
reddish scales of which their flowers are 
composed. Amaranthus, the typical 
genus, comprises A. caudatus, or love-lies- 
bleeding, a common plant in gardens, with 
pendulous racemes of crimson flowers; 
and A. hypochondriacus, or princes’ 
feather. The blossoms keep their bloom 
after being plucked and dried (hence the 
name: Gr. a, not, and margino , to 
wither). 

Amarapura («-ma-ra-po'ra), a de- 
r serted city, once the 

capital of the Burmese Empire, on the 
left bank of the Irawaddy, 10 miles N. 
e. of Ava. In 1810 it was completely 
destroyed by fire, in 1839 it was visited 
by a destructive earthquake. In 1857 the 
seat of government was removed to 


Mandalay. The population, now van¬ 
ished, in 1800 was 175,000. 

Am ATI 11 n (am-a-ril'lo), a city, capi- 
xinidimo tal of Potter Co> Texas> 

333 miles n. w. of Fort Worth. It is in 
a farming and cattle ranching country 
and is traversed by several railroads. 
Pop. 9,957. 

Amaryllidaceae 

ocotyledonous plants, generally bulbous, 
occasionally with a tall, cylindrical, woody 
stem (as in Agave) ; with a highly 
colored flower, six stamens, and an 
inferior three-celled ovary; natives of 
Europe and most of the warmer parts of 
the world. The order includes the snow¬ 
drop, the snow-flake, the daffodil, the 
belladonna-lily (belonging to the typical 
genus Amaryllis), the so-called Guernsey 
lily (probably a native of Japan), the 
Brunsvigias, the blood-flowers (Haeman- 
thus) of the Cape of Good Hope, different 
species of Narcissus, Agave (American 
aloe), etc. Many are highly prized in 
gardens and hothouses; the bulbs of some 
are strongly poisonous. 

Amacia (a-ma-se'a), a town in north 
xlllldalcl of Asia Minor on the Ir _ 

mak, 60 miles from the Black Sea, sur¬ 
mounted by a rocky height in which 
is a ruined fortress; has numerous 
mosques, richly-endowed Mohammedan 
schools, and a trade in wine, silk, etc. 
Amasia was a residence of the ancient 
kings of Pontus. Pop. 25,000. 

Amacia (a-ma'sis), King of Egypt from 
569 to 526 b. c., obtained the 
throne by rebelling against his predecessor 
Apries, and is chiefly known from his 
friendship for the Greeks, and his wise 
government of the kingdom, which, under 
him, was in the most prosperous condi¬ 
tion. 

Amati (a-ma'te), a family of Cremona 
who manufactured violins in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
Andrea (about 1540-1600) was the 
founder of the business, which was carried 
on by his sons Geronimo and Antonio, and 
by Niccolo the son of Geronimo. Most 
of the violins made by them are of com¬ 
paratively small size and flat model, and 
the tone produced by the fourth or G 
string is somewhat thin and sharp. 
Many of Niccolo Amati’s violins are, how¬ 
ever, of a larger size and have all the 
fullness and intensity of tone character¬ 
istic of those manufactured by Stradi- 
vario and Guarnerio. 

Amatitlan a town in 

Central America, State of 
Guatemala, about 15 miles south of the 
city of Guatemala, a busy modern town, 
the inhabitants of which are actively 















Amaurosis 


Amazon 


engaged in the cochineal trade. There is 
a small lake of same name close to the 
town. Pop. 10,000. 


Amaurosis ( am - a u-ro'sis; Greek 

amauros, dark), a spec¬ 
ies of blindness, formerly called gutta 
serena (the ‘drop serene,’ as Milton, 
whose blindness was of this sort, called 
it), caused by disease of the nerves of 
vision. The most frequent causes are a 
long-continued direction of the eye on 
minute objects, long exposure to a bright 
light, to the fire of a forge, to snow, or 
irritating gases, overfullness of blood, dis¬ 
ease of the brain, etc. If taken in time 
it may be cured or mitigated; but con¬ 
firmed amaurosis is usually incurable. 

Amaxichi (a-maks-e'ke), the chief 
town and seaport of Santa 
Maura (Leukadia), one of the Ionian 
Isles, the seat of a Greek bishop ; manu¬ 
factures cotton and leather. Pop. 6,000. 


of about 200 tributaries, 100 of which are 
navigable, and seventeen of these 1,000 to 
2,300 miles in length; northern tribu¬ 
taries: Santiago, Morona, Pastaca, Tigre, 
Napo, Putumayo, Japura, Rio Negro (the 
Cassiquiare connects this stream with the 
Orinoco), etc.; southern: Huallaga, 
Ucayale, Javari, Jutay, Jurua, Coary, 
Purus, Madeira, Tapajos, Xingu, etc. At 
Tabatinga where it enters Brazilian ter¬ 
ritory, the breadth is 1£ miles; below the 
mouth of the Madeira it is 3 miles wide, 
and where there are islands often as 
much as 7; from the sea to the Rio 
Negro, 750 miles in a straight line, the 
depth is nowhere less than 30 fathoms; up 
to the junction of the Ucayale there is 
depth sufficient for the largest vessels. 
The Amazonian water system affords 
some 50,000 miles of river suitable for 
navigation. The rapidity of the river is 
considerable, especially during the rainy 



Ama^rm Amazons (am'a-zon), a 
xiiUdZ'Uii, river of gouth America> the 

largest in the world, formed by a great 
number of sources which rise in the 
Andes; the two head branches being the 
Tunguragua or Maranon and the Ucayale, 
both rising in Peru, the former from 
Lake Tauricocha, in lat. 10° 29' s., the 
latter formed by the Apurimac and 
Urubamba, the head-waters of which are 
between lat. 14° and 16° s„ general 
course north of east; length including 
windings between 3,000 and 4.000 miles; 
area of drainage basin 2,300,000 sq. miles. 
It enters the Atlantic under the equator 
by a mouth 200 miles wide, divided into 
two principal and several smaller arms 
by the large island Marajo, and a number 
of smaller islands. In its upper course 
navigation is interrupted by rapids, but 
from its mouth upwards for a distance 
of 3300 miles (mostly in Brazil) there is 
no obstruction. It receives the waters 


season (January to June), when it is 
subject to floods; but there is no great 
fall in its course. The tides reach up as 
far as 400 miles from its mouth. The 
singular phenomenon of the bore, or as 
it is called on the Amazon the pororoca , 
occurs at the mouth of the river at spring- 
tides on a grand scale. The river swarms 
with alligators, turtles, and a great 
variety of fish. The country through 
which it flows is extremely fertile, and is 
mostly covered with immense forests; it 
must at some future time support a nu¬ 
merous population, and be the theater of 
a busy commerce. Steamers and other 
craft ply on the river, the chief center 
of trade being Para, at its mouth. The 
Amazon was discovered by Yanez Pingon 
in 1500, but the stream was not navigated 
by any European till 1540, when Francis 
Orellana descended it. Orellana stated 
that he found on its banks a nation of 
armed women (an incorrect statement), 








Amazonas 


Ambidextrous 


and this circumstance gave the name to 
the river. 

Ama’ 7 rma<t (am-a-zo'nas), the largest 
iimazoildb province of Brazil, trav¬ 
ersed by the Amazon and its tributaries; 
area, 753,000 sq. miles; pop. about 160,- 
000 . 

Am , Q 7 nric according to an ancient 
illli clz,ulK> > Greek tradition, the name of 
a community of women, who permitted no 
men to reside among them, fought under 
the conduct of a queen, and long con¬ 
stituted a formidable State. They were 
said to burn off the right breast that it 
might not impede them in the use of the 
bow—a legend that arose from the Greeks 
supposing the name was from a, not, 
mazos, breast. It is probably from o, 
together, and mazos , breast, the name 
meaning therefore sisters. Several na¬ 
tions of Amazons are mentioned, the most 
famous being those who dwelt in Pontus, 
who built Ephesus and other cities. Their 
queen, Hippolyta, was vanquished by 
Hercules. They attacked Attica in the 
time of Theseus. They came to the 
assistance of Troy under their queen, 
Penthesilea, who was slain by Achilles. 

Ama> 7 n'In a branch of the Zulu Kaffir 

Amazu iu, race gee Zulus 

Arriba la (am-bal'a), Umbali/a, a town 
AmDaia of India< in the Pun j ab) in an 

open plain 3 miles from the Ghaggar, con¬ 
sisting of an old and a new portion, with 
a flourishing trade in grain and other 
commodities. The military cantonment is 
several miles distant. Total pop. 78,- 
638. 

Am "ha lpm a (am-ba-la'ma), a town of 
AmDaiema g America> Colombia, on 

the Magdalena; the center of an im¬ 
portant tobacco district. Pop. 8,000. 
Arnbarpp (am'ba-re), a fiber similar 
xim uaicc to jute largely used in 
India, obtained from Hibiscus cannabinus. 

Ambassador ( f ln ‘ b ?“', a ‘ d ;:F ) ,: a 

ter of the highest rank, 
employed by one prince or state at the 
court of another to manage the public 
concerns, or support the interests of his 
own prince or state, and representing the 
power and dignity of his sovereign or 
state. Ambassadors are ordinary when 
they reside permanently at a foreign 
court, or extraordinary when they are 
sent on a special occasion. When am¬ 
bassadors extraordinary have full powers, 
as of concluding peace, making treaties, 
and the like, they are called plenipoten¬ 
tiaries. Ambassadors are often called 
simply ministers. . Envoys are ministers 
employed on special occasions, and are 
of less dignity than ambassadors. The 
United States, until 1893, had never sent 
an agent of the diplomatic rank of am¬ 


bassador. They had been represented by 
ministers-plenipotentiary. In that year 
the president was authorized to raise 
representatives to foreign governments to 
the rank of ambassador when notified 
that their representatives to the United 
States were to be likewise exalted. It 
now has ambassadors to Great Britain, 
Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, 
Italy, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and 
Japan, being represented by ministers in 
other countries. 

A-m'ba+pb ( Herminiera elaphroxylon ), 
illil Ud,tl ' u a thorny, leguminous shrub 
with yellow flowers growing in the shal¬ 
lows of the Upper Nile and other rivers 
of tropical Africa. 

Ambatn (am-ba'to), a town of Ecuador, 
ximuauu Qn the side of Chimborazo, 70 

miles south of Quito. Pop. 10,000. 
Am'ber a sem i' m i nora l substance of 
f resinous composition, a sort of 
fossil resin, the product of extinct Conif¬ 
er®. It is usually of yellow or reddish- 
brown color; brittle; yields easily to the 
knife; is translucent, and possessed of a 
resinous luster. Specific gravity, 1.065. 
It burns with a yellow flame, emitting a 
pungent, aromatic smoke, and leaving a 
light, carbonaceous residue, which is em¬ 
ployed as the basis of the finest black 
varnishes. By friction it becomes strong¬ 
ly electric. It is found in masses from 
the size of coarse sand to that of a man’s 
head, and occurs in beds of bituminous 
wood situated ujjon the shores of the 
Baltic and Adriatic Seas; also in Poland, 
France, Italy, and Denmark. It is often 
washed up on the Prussian shores of the 
Baltic, and is also obtained by fishing for 
it with nets. Sometimes it is found on 
the east coast of Britain, in gravel pits 
round London, also in the United States. 
Ambers* (am'berg), a town of south 
® Germany, in Bavaria, on the 
Vils, well built, with a Gothic church of 
the fifteenth century, royal palace, town- 
house, etc.; manufactures of ironwares, 
stoneware, tobacco, beer, vinegar, and 
arms. Pop. 22,089. 

AmberPTlS (am'ber-gris), a substance 
ximucig a derived from the intestines 
of the sperm-whale, and found floating or 
on the shore ; yellowish or blackish white; 
very light; melts at 140°, and is entirely 
dissipated on red-hot coals; is soluble in 
ether, volatile oils, and partially in 
alcohol, and is chiefly composed of a 
peculiar fatty substance. Its odor is very 
agreeable, and hence it is used as a 
perfume. 

Ambidextrous (am-bi-d e k S't r u s ). 

having the faculty 
of using the left hand as effectively as the 
right. 




Ambleteuse 


Ambrosian Library 


AmKlptpn«iP (an-bl-tewz), a small sea- 

iimDiexense port of France> 6 miles 

from Boulogne. Here James II landed 

on his flight from England in 1688; and 

from its harbor Napoleon I prepared to 

despatch a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats 

for the invasion of Britain. 

Amblvonsis (am-bli-op'sis), a genus 
xxiiiuiyups>u> Qf blind fighes contain _ 

ing only one species, A. speloeus, found 
in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. 

Amblvonv (am'bli-o-pi), dullness or 
nniULyvyy obscurity of eyesight 

without any apparent defect in the 
organs ; the first stage of amaurosis. 
Am'bo Am'bon, in early Christian 
* churches a kind of raised desk 
or pulpit, sometimes richly ornamented, 
from which certain parts of the ser¬ 
vice were read, or discourses deliv¬ 
ered, there being sometimes two in one 
church. 

Amboina. See Amboyna. 

Amhniqp (&p-bwaz), a town of France, 
xiniuuiac dep. Indre-et-Loire, 12 miles 

e. of Tours, on the Loire, with an an¬ 
tique castle, the residence of several 
French kings, and manufactures of files 
and rasps. Pop. (1906) 4632. 
Arnhnv'rm (am-boi'na), Amboina, or 
xxin uuy 1Aa Apon, one of the 
Molucca Islands in the Indian Archipel¬ 
ago, close to the large island of Ceram; 
area, 262 sq. miles. Here is the seat of 
government of the Dutch residency or 
province of Amboyna, which includes also 
Ceram, Booro, etc. Its surface is gen¬ 
erally hilly or mountainous, its general 
aspect beautiful, and its climate on the 
whole salubrious, but it is not unfrequent- 
ly visited by earthquakes. It affords a 
variety of useful trees, including the 
cocoanut and sago palms. Cloves and 
nutmegs are the staple productions. The 
soil in the valleys and along the shores 
is very fertile, but a large portion remains 
uncultivated. The natives are mostly of 
Malayan race. The capital, also called 
Amboyna, is situated on the Bay of 
Amboyna, and is well built and defended 
by a citadel. The streets are planted on 
each side with rows of fruit-trees. It is 
a free port. Pop. 10,500. In 1607 
Amboyna and the other Moluccas were 
taken by the Dutch from the Portuguese, 
and it was for some years the seat of 
government of the Dutch East Indies. 
Trade with the Moluccas was secured to 
the British by treaty in 1619, but the 
British establishment was destroyed and 
several persons massacred in 1623, an out¬ 
rage for which no satisfaction was ob¬ 
tained till 1654 by Cromwell. Amboyna 
was taken by the British in 1796 and 


1810, but each time restored to the Dutch. 
Pop. 38,663. 

Amboyna Wood, “ ra “! gg* 

ish colored wood brought from the Moluc¬ 
cas, yielded by Pterospermum indicum. 

Ambra'cia. See Arta. 

Am'brose Saint, a celebrated father 
, of the church ; born in a. d. 
333 or 334, probably at Treves, where his 
father was prefect; died in 397. He was 
educated at Rome, studied law, practised 
as a pleader at Milan, and in 369 was 
appointed governor of Liguria and Emilia 
(North Italy). His kindness and wisdom 
gained him the esteem and love of the 
people, and in 374 he was unanimously 
called to the bishopric of Milan, though 
not yet baptized. For a time he refused 
to accept this dignity, but he had to give 
way, and at once ranged himself against 
the Arians. In his struggles against the 
Arian heresy he was opposed by Justina, 
mother of Valentinian II and for a time 
by the young emperor himself, together 
with the courtiers and the Gothic troops. 
Backed by the people of Milan, however, 
he felt strong enough to deny the Arians 
the use of a single church in the city, 
although Justina, in her son’s name, de¬ 
manded that two should be given up. He 
had also to carry on a war with paganism, 
Symmachus, the prefect of the city, an 
eloquent orator, having endeavored to re¬ 
store the worship of heathen deities. In 
390, on account of the ruthless massacre 
at Thessalonica ordered by the emperor 
Theodosius, he refused him entrance into 
the church of Milan for eight months. 
The later years of his life were devoted to 
the more immediate care of his see. His 
writings, which are numerous, show that 
his theological knowledge extended little 
beyond an acquaintance with the works of 
the Greek fathers. He wrote Latin 
hymns, but the Te Deum Laudamus, 
which has been ascribed to him, was 
written a century later. He introduced 
the Ambrosian Chant , a mode of singing 
more monotonous than the Gregorian 
which superseded it. He also compiled a 
form of ritual known by his name. 

AmbrociQ (am-bro'zhi-a), in Greek 
XlIIIUIUMd, mytholo ^ y the food of the 

gods, as nectar was their drink. 

Ambrosian Chant. See Ambrose. 
Ambrosian library, “ ra P° b “ c Jj; 

lan founded by the cardinal archbishop 
Federigo Borromeo, a relation of St. 
Charles Borromeo, and opened in 1609; 
now containing 160,000 printed books and 
many MSS. It was named in honor 



Ambry 


America 


of St. Ambrose, the patron saint of 
Milan. 

AmbrV ( am/ bri). a niche or recess in 
A J the wall of ancient churches 
near the altar, fitted with a door and used 
for keeping the sacred utensils, etc. 

AmVmlanral (am-bu-la'kral) System, 
Amouiacrai the locomotive apparatus 

of the Echinodermata (sea-urchins, star¬ 
fishes, etc.), the most important feature 
of which is the protrusible tube-feet that 
the animals can at will dilate with water 
and thus move forward. 

AmVmlflTiPP (am'bu-lans), a hospital 

AmDUiance establishment which ac . 

companies an army in its movements in 
the field for the purpose of providing as¬ 
sistance and surgical treatment to the 
soldiers wounded in battle. The name is 
often given to one of the carts, wagons, 
or litters used to transfer the wounded 
from the spot where they fell to the 
hospital, and also for the ordinary use of 
city hospitals. One form of ambulance 
wagon is a strong but light vehicle with 
an upright frame, from which two stretch¬ 
ers are slung from the top for the ac¬ 
commodation of those most severely 
wounded; seats before and behind are 
provided for those suffering from less 
serious wounds. The hospital chests, 
containing surgical instruments, band¬ 
ages, splints, etc., are placed in the 
bottom of the wagon or lashed to its 
under surfaces. A thorough ambulance 
system in connection with armies in the 
field is quite of recent introduction. A 
training in ambulance work is now being 
recognized as of importance beyond the 
field of military affairs, and as being of 
the utmost service wherever serious ac¬ 
cidents are likely to happen, as, for in¬ 
stance, in connection with large industrial 
establishments. 

AmplarirTlipr (am-el-an'ke-er), a 

iimeiancmer genus of gmall trees 

natives of Europe and N. America, allied 
to the medlar. A. vulgaris, long culti¬ 
vated in English gardens, has showy white 
flowers; A. Botrydpium (grape-pear) and 
A. ovdlis, American species, yield pleasant 
fruits. 

Amplanrt (a'me-lant), an island off the 
'".meidiiu north coast of Holland, 13 
miles long and 3 broad ; flat; inhabitants 
(about 2,000 in number) chiefly engaged 
in fishing and agriculture. 

Amelie-les Bains fc^g***^ 

France, dep. Pyr€n6es Orientales, fre¬ 
quented as a winter residence for invalids, 
and for its warm, sulphurous springs. 

A men (a-men'), a Hebrew word, 
signifying ‘verily,’ ‘truly,’ 
transferred from the religious language 


of the Jews to that of the Christians, and 
used at the end of prayers as equivalent 
to ‘ so be it,’ ‘ may this be granted.’ 

Amendment ( a_men d'nient) > a P r °‘ 
xlllieilUlliei posal brought forward 

in a meeting of some public or other 
body, either in order to get an alteration 
introduced on some proposal already be¬ 
fore the meeting, or entirely to overturn 
such proposal. When amendments are 
made in either House of Congress upon a 
bill which passed the other, the bill, as 
amended, must be sent back to the other 
House. The Senate may amend money 
bills passed by the House of Representa¬ 
tives, but cannot originate such bills. 
Art. V of the Constitution of the United 
States contains a provision for its amend¬ 
ment. 

Ameno-nTm (a-men-o'fis), or Amen- 
•nJIieiiupillb H0TEP m , a king of 

ancient Egypt about 1500 b. c. ; warred 
successfully against Syrians and Ethio¬ 
pians, built magnificent temples and pal¬ 
aces at Thebes, where the so-called 
Memnon statue is a statue of this king. 

Am ah nr vli mo (a-men-d-re'a), absence 
iimeiiuiniujci or suspension of men . 

struation. The former may arise from 
general debility or from defective develop¬ 
ment, the latter from exposure to cold, 
from attacks of fever or other ailment, 
violent excitement, etc. 

A m ah f a aa cp (a-men-ta'se-e), an order 

iimentacese of plants haying their 

flowers arranged in amenta or catkins; 
now broken up into several orders, the 
chief of which are Betulaceae (the birch), 
Salicinese (the willow), Balsamifluse (the 
liquidambar), Plataneae (the plane), and 
Cupuliferse (the nut). 

Amentia </- me °>M-a). imbecility 

from birth. 

Amentum (a-men'tum), in botany, 
Amentum. that kind of inflorescence 

which is commonly 
known as a catkin 
(as in the birch or 
willow), consisting of 
unisexual apetalous 
flowers in the axil 
of scales or bracts. 

America (a-me/' 1 - 

ka), fre¬ 
quently spoken of as 
the New World, the 
largest of the great L 
divisions of the globe 
except Asia, is 
washed on the west 
by the Pacific, on the Willow (Salix fragilis ), 
east by the Atlantic, male and female, with 
on the north by the ’separate flowers. 
Arctic Ocean, on the south tapers to a 
point. On the northwest it approaches 



Amentum. 



America 


America 


within about 50 miles of Asia, while on 
the northeast the island of Greenland ap¬ 
proaches within 370 miles of the Eu¬ 
ropean island Iceland ; but in the south the 
distance between the American main¬ 
land and Europe or Africa is very great. 
Extreme points of the continent-north, 
Boothia Felix, at the Strait of Bellot, lat. 
72° n. ; south, Cape Horn, lat. 56° s.; 
west, Cape Prince of Wales, Ion. 168° w.; 
east. Point de Guia, Ion. 35° w. America 
as a whole forms the two triangular con¬ 
tinents of North and South America, 
united by the narrow Isthmus of Panama, 
and having an entire length of about 
30,000 miles; a maximum breadth (in 
North America) of 3,500 miles; a coast 
line of 44,000 miles; and a total area, of 
about 16,500,000. of which N. America 
contains about 8,700,000 sq. miles. South 
America is more compact in form than N. 
America, in this respect resembling 
Africa, while N. America more resembles 
Europe. Between the two on the east 
side is the great basin which comprises 
the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, 
and the West India Islands. Like Eu¬ 
rope also N. America possesses numerous 
islands, while those of S. America are 
less important and confined almost to the 
southern extremity. 

Three-fourths of the area of America is 
comparatively flat, and this portion of the 
surface is bounded on the west by lofty 
mountain systems which stretch continu¬ 
ously from north to south between the ex¬ 
tremities of the continent, generally at no 
great distance from the west shore. In 
North America the Rocky Mountains, a 
broad series of masses partly consisting of 
plateaus, from the most important portion 
of the elevated surface, being continued 
southward in the mountains and table¬ 
land of Mexico and the ranges of Central 
America. Separated by depressions from 
the Rocky Mountains proper, and running 
close to and parallel with the western 
coast, are several lofty ranges (Sierra 
Nevada, Cascade Mountains, etc.) ; Near 
the eastern coast, and forming an isolated 
mass, are the Appalachians, a system 
of much inferior magnitude. The loftiest 
mountains in N. America of definitely 
known elevation are Mts. McKinley, 20,- 
464 ; Nevado de Toluca, 19,454; Orizaba, 
18.250; and St. Elias, 18,026 feet high 
The depression of the Isthmus of Pan¬ 
ama (about 260 feet) forms a natural 
separation between the systems of the 
north and the south. In S. America 
the Andes form a system of greater eleva¬ 
tion but less breadth than the Rocky 
Mountains and consist of a series of 
ranges ( cordilleras ) closely following the 
line of the west coast from the Isthmus of 


Panama to Cape Horn. The highest sum¬ 
mits seem to be Aconcagua (22,860 feet), 
Sorata or Illampu (21,484), and Sahama 
(21,054). Volcanoes are numerous. Iso¬ 
lated mountain groups of minor impor¬ 
tance are the highlands of Venezuela and 
of Brazil, the latter near the eastern 
coast, reaching a height of 10,000 feet. 

The fertile lowlands which lie to the 
east of the Rocky Mountains and the 
Andes form a depression extending 
through both continents from the northern 
to the southern oceans. They have some¬ 
what different features and different 
names in different portions; in N. Amer¬ 
ica are prairies and savannahs, in S. 
America llanos , selvas, and pampas. 

Through these low grounds flow the 
numerous great rivers which form so 
characteristic a feature of America. The 
principal are the Mackenzie, Coppermine, 
and Great Fish rivers, entering the 
Northern Ocean; the Churchill, Nelson, 
Severn, and Albany, entering Hudson 
Bay; the St. Lawrence, entering the 
Atlantic; Mississippi and Rio del Norte, 
entering the Gulf of Mexico (all these 
being in N. America) ; the Magdalena, 
Orinoco, Amazon, Paranahiba, Rio de la 
Plata, Colorado, and Rio Negro, enter¬ 
ing the Atlantic (all in S. America) ; and 
the Yukon, Fraser, Colombia, San 
Joaquin, Sacramento, and Colorado, enter¬ 
ing the Pacific. The rivers which flow 
into the Pacific, however, owing to the 
fact that the great backbone of the con¬ 
tinent, the Rocky Mountains and the 
Andes, lies so near the west coast, are 
of comparatively little importance, in S. 
America being all quite small. Sometimes 
rivers traversing the same plains, and 
nearly on the same levels, open com¬ 
munications with each other, a remark¬ 
able instance being the Cassiquiari in S. 
America, w’hich, branching off from the 
Rio Negro and joining the Orinoco, forms 
a kind of natural canal, uniting the basins 
of the Orinoco and the Amazon. The 
Amazon or Maranon in S. America, the 
largest river in the world, has a course 
of about 3,500 miles, and a basin of 
2,300,000 square miles; the Mississippi- 
Missouri, the largest river of North Amer¬ 
ica, runs a longer course than the Ama¬ 
zon, but the area of its basin is not 
nearly so great. North America has the 
most extensive group of lakes in the 
world—Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, 
Erie, and Ontario, which through the St. 
Lawrence send their drainage to the 
Atlantic. Thus by means of lakes and 
rivers the interior of both N. and S. 
America is opened up and made accessible. 

In regard to climate N. America 
naturally differs very much from S. 



America 


America 


America, and has more resemblance to 
the continents of Europe and Asia (re¬ 
garded as a whole). In N. America, as 
in the older continent, the eastern parts 
are colder than the western, and hence 
the towns on the Atlantic coast have a 
winter temperature about 10° lower than 
those in corresponding latitudes of Eu¬ 
rope. The winter temperature of the 
greater part of N. America is indeed 
severe, though the intense cold is less 
felt on account of the dryness of the 
air. There is no regular season of rain¬ 
fall unless in the south. Although two- 
thirds of S. America lies within the 
tropics the heat is not so great as might 
be expected, owing to the prevailing 
winds, the influences of the Andes, end 
other. causes. The highest temperature 
experienced is probably not more than 
100° in the shade: at Rio de Janeiro the 
mean is about 74°, at Lima 72°. Over 
great part of S. America there is a wet 
and a dry season, varying in different 
regions; on the upper Amazon the rains 
last for ten months, being caused by the 
prevailing easterly winds bringing mois¬ 
ture from the Atlantic, which is con¬ 
densed on the eastern slopes of the Andes. 
In each of the Americas there is a 
region in which little or no rain falls; in 
N. America it extends over the south¬ 
western part of the United States and 
Northern Mexico, in S. America over a 
part of the coast region of Peru and 
Chile. 

America is rich in valuable minerals. 
It has supplied the world with immense 
quantities of gold and silver, which it 
still yields in large amount, especially in 
the United States. It possesses enor¬ 
mous stores of coal (U. States), with an 
abundance of iron, copper, lead, mercury, 
etc. Petroleum may be called one of its 
specialties, its petroleum wells having 
yielded vast quantities of this useful 
material and having no rivals except at 
Baku, Russia. 

As regards vegetation America may be 
called a region of forests and verdure, vast 
tracts being covered by the grassy 
prairies, llanos, and pampas where the 
forests fail. In N. America the forests 
have been largely made use of by man : 
in. S. America immense areas are covered 
with forests, which as yet are traversed 
only by the uncivilized Indian. In the 
north is the region of pines and firs; 
further south come the deciduous trees, as 
the oak, beech, maple, elm, chestnut, etc. 
Then follow the evergreen forests of the 
tropical regions. The useful timber trees 
are very numerous; among the most 
characteristic of America are mahogany 
and other ornamental woods, and various 


dyewoods. In the tropical parts are 
numerous palms, cacti in great variety, 
and various species of the agave or 
American aloe. In the virgin forests of 
S. America the trees are often bound to¬ 
gether into an impenetrable mass of vege¬ 
tation by various kind of climbing and 
twining plants. Among useful plants be¬ 
longing to the American continent are 
maize, the potato, cacao, tobacco, cin¬ 
chona, vanilla, Paraguay tea, etc. The 
most important plants introduced are 
wheat, rice, and other grains, sugar-cane, 
coffee, and cotton, with various fruits and 
vegetables. The vine is native to the 
continent, and both the American and 
introduced varieties are now largely 
cultivated. 

The distinctive animals of America in¬ 
clude, among carnivora, the jaguar or 
American tiger, found only in S. Amer¬ 
ica ; the puma or American lion, found 
mostly in S. America, the grizzly bear of 
N. America, a more powerful animal than 
either; the black bear, the polar bear, 
the lynx, the raccoon, the American or 
prairie wolf, several species of foxes, etc. 
The rodents are represented by the beaver, 
the porcupine, and squirrels of several 
species; the marsupials by the opossum. 
Among ruminants are the bison, or, as it 
is commonly called, the buffalo, the moose 
or elk, the Virginian stag, the musk-ox; 
and in S. America the llama (which takes 
the place of the camel of the Old World), 
the alpaca, and the vicuna. Other 
animals most distinctive of S. America 
are sloths, fitted to live only in its dense 
and boundless forests; ant-eaters and 
armadillos : monkeys with prehensile tails, 
in this and other respects differing from 
those of the Old World ; the condor among 
the heights of the Andes, the nandu, rhea 
or three-toed ostrich, beautiful parrots 
and humming-birds. Among American 
reptiles are the boa-constrictor, the rattle¬ 
snake, the alligator or cayman, the iguana 
and other large lizards, large frogs and 
toads. The domestic animals of America, 
horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, are of 
foreign origin. The electrical eel exists 
in the tropical waters. 

The population of America consists 
partly of an aboriginal race or races, part¬ 
ly of immigrants or their descendants. 
The aboriginal inhabitants are the Amer¬ 
ican Indians or red men, being generally 
of a brownish-red color, and now forming 
a. very small portion of the total popular 
tion, especially in N. America, where the 
white population has almost exterminated 
them. These people are divided into 
branches, some of which have displayed 
a considerable aptitude for civilization. 
When the Europeans became acquainted 



America 


American Association 


with the New World, Mexico, Central and 
part of S. America were inhabited by 
populations which had made great ad¬ 
vances in many things that pertain to 
civilized life, dwelling in large and well- 
built cities under a settled form of 
government, and practising agriculture 
and the mechanical arts. Ever since the 
discovery of America at the close of the 
fifteenth century Europeans of all nations 
have crowded into it; and the compara¬ 
tively feeble native races have rapidly 
diminished, or lost their distinctive fea¬ 
tures by intermixtures with whites, and 
also with negroes brought from Africa to 
work as slaves. These mixed races are 
distinguished by a variety of names, as 
Mestizos, Mulattoes, Zambos, etc. In 
North America the white population is 
mainly of British origin, though to a 
considerable extent it also consists of 
Germans, Scandinavians, and other Euro¬ 
peans and their descendants. In Central 
and South America the prevailing white 
nationality is the Spanish and Portuguese. 
In the extreme north are the Eskimos—a 
scattered and stunted race closely allied 
to some of the peoples of Northern Asia. 
That the aboriginal inhabitants of Amer¬ 
ica passed over from Asia seems proba¬ 
ble, but when and from what part we do 
not know. The total population of the 
New World is estimated as being 160,000,- 
000, of which nearly two-thirds are 
whites, the remainder being negroes, In¬ 
dians and mixed races. As regards relig¬ 
ion the bulk of the population of N. 
America is Protestant; of Central and S. 
America the religion is almost exclusively 
Roman Catholic. Several millions of ihe 
Indians are heathens.—The independent 
States of America are all republican in 
form of government. See N., S. and 
Central America. 

The merit of first unlocking the Amer¬ 
ican continent to modern Europe belongs 
to the Genoese navigator Christopher 
Columbus, who discovered, in October, 
1492, one of the Bahamas, and named it 
San Salvador. The coast of North Amer¬ 
ica had, however, been discovered, in the 
region of New England or Labrador, by 
the adventurous Northmen, as early as 
1000, and named by them Vinland. But 
this discovery had no influence on the 
enterprise of Columbus, and did not de¬ 
tract in the least from his merit; for¬ 
gotten in the north, it had never been 
known to the inhabitants of the rest 
of Europe. Though Columbus was the 
first of his time who set foot on the New 
World, it has taken its name not from 
him, but from Amerigo Vespucci. The 
mainland was first seen in 1497 by 
Sebastian Cabot, who sailed under the 


patronage of Henry VII of England. 
For further particulars of discovery see 
North America and South America. 

The known history of America hardly 
goes beyond the period of its discovery by 
Columbus; but it possesses many monu¬ 
ments of antiquity that might take us 
many centuries backward, could we learn 
anything of their origin or of those by 
whom they were produced. Among such 
antiquities are great earthworks in the 
form of mounds, or of raised enclosures, 
crowning the tops of hills, river pe¬ 
ninsulas, etc., and no doubt serving for 
defense. They enclose considerable areas, 
are surrounded by an exterior ditch, and 
by ramparts which are composed of 
mingled earth and stones, and are often 
of great extent in proportion to the area 
inclosed. They are always supplied 
either naturally or artificially with water, 
and give other indications of having been 
provided for a siege. Barrows and 
tumuli containing human bones, and 
which bear indications of having been 
used both as places of sepulture and as 
temples, are also numerous. They are in 
geometrical forms—circles, squares, paral¬ 
lelograms, etc. A mound on the plain of 
Cahokia in Illinois, opposite the city of 
St. Louis, is 700 feet long, 500 feet 
broad, and 90 feet high. Another class 
of earth mounds represent gigantic animal 
forms in bas-relief on the ground. One 
is a man with two heads, the body 50 feet 
long and 25 feet broad across the breast; 
another represents a serpent 1,000 feet 
in length, with graceful curves. The 
monuments of Mexico, Central America, 
and Peru belong to a far more advanced 
state of civilization, approach nearer to 
the historical period in origin, and make 
the loss of authentic information more se¬ 
verely felt. Here there are numerous 
ruined towns with most elaborate sculp¬ 
tures, lofty pyramidal structures serving 
as temples or forts, statues, picture writ¬ 
ing, hieroglyphics, roads, aqueducts, 
bridges, etc. Some remarkable prehistoric 
remains are what are known as the 
abodes of the ‘ cliff-dwellers.’ These con¬ 
sist of habitations constructed on ter¬ 
races and in caves high up the steep sides 
of canons in Colorado and other parts of 
the western United States. See also Mex¬ 
ico, Peru, etc. 

American Antiquities. f c e o e Amer ~ 

American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, a s a c f£ 

tion based on the older British society for 
the same purpose. It grew out of the 
association of American Geologists, which 



American Indians 


Americanism 


first met at Philadelphia in 1840, and in 
1847 adopted the above title. The society 
meets annually in some American city, 
the meetings lasting a week. Valuable 
papers, in every field of science, are read 
or presented. 

American Indians. See Indians. 


Arnprirarnsm (a-mer'i-kan-izm), a 
ililiei li/dlllblll term> phrase> or idi om 

peculiar to the English language as 
spoken in America, and not forming 
part of the language as spoken in Eng¬ 
land. The following is a list of a few 
of the more noteworthy Americanisms, 
some of them being rather slangy or 
vulgar:— 


Around or round , about or near. To 
liang around is to loiter about a place. 

Backwoods, the partially cleared forest 
regions in the Western States. 

Bee, an assemblage of persons who unite 
their labors for the benefit of an in¬ 
dividual or family, or carry out a joint 
scheme. 

Bogus, false, counterfeit. 

Boss, an employer or superintendent of 
laborers, a leader. 

Bug, a coleopterous insect, or what in 
England is called a beetle. 

Buggy, a four-wheeled vehicle. 

Bulldoze, to ; to intimidate voters. 

Bunkum or buncombe, a speech made 
solely to please a constituency; talk 
for talking’s sake, and in an inflated 
style. 

Bureau, a chest of drawers; a dressing- 
table surmounted by a mirror. 

Calculate, to suppose, to believe, to think. 

Camp-meeting, a meeting held in the fields 
or woods for religious purposes, and 
where the assemblages encamp and re¬ 
main several days. 

Cane-brake, a thicket of canes. 

Car, a carriage or wagon of a railway 
train. The Englishman * travels by 
rail,’ or ‘ takes the train; ’ the Amer¬ 
ican takes or goes by the cars. 

Caucus, a private meeting of the leading 
politicians of a party to agree upon the 
plans to be pursued in an approaching 
election or in a legislative body. 

Chalk: a long chalk means a great dis¬ 
tance, a good deal. 

Chunk, a short thick piece of wood or any 
other material. 

Clever, good-natured, obliging. 

Cocktail, a stimulating drink made of 
brandy or gin mixed with sugar, and 
a very little water. 

Corn, maize; in England, wheat, or grain 
in general. 

Corn-husking, or corn-shucking, an oc¬ 
casion on which a farmer invites his 


neighbors to assist him in stripping the 
husks from his Indian corn. 

Cow-hide, a whip made of twisted strips 
of raw-hide. 

Creek, a small river or brook ; not, as in 
England, a small arm of the sea. 

Cunning, small and pretty, nice, as it was 
such a cunning baby. 

Dander: to get one’s dander raised, to 
have one’s dander up, is to have been 
worked into a passion. 

Dead-heads, people who have free admis¬ 
sion to entertainments, or who have the 
use of public conveyances, or the like, 
free of charge. 

Depot, a railway-station. 

Down East, in or into the New England 
States. A down-easter is a New Eng¬ 
lander. 

Drummer, a bagman or commercial 
traveler. 

Dry goods, a general term for such 
articles as are sold by linen-drapers, 
haberdashers, hosiers, etc. 

Dutch, the German language.— Dutchman, 
a German. 

Fix, to; to put in order, to prepare, to 
adjust. To fix the hair, the table, the 
fire, is to dress the hair, lay the table, 
make up the fire. 

Fixings, arrangements, dress, embellish¬ 
ments, luggage, furniture, garnishings 
of any kind. 

Gerrymander, to arrange political divi¬ 
sions so that in an election one party 
may obtain an advantage over its op¬ 
ponent, even though the latter may 
possess a majority of votes in the State ; 
from the deviser of such a scheme, 
named Gerry, governor of Massa¬ 
chusetts. 

Given name, a Christian name. 

Grit, courage, spirit, mettle. 

Guess, to; to believe, to suppose, to think, 
to fancy; also used emphatically, as 
‘Joe, will you liquor up?’ ‘I guess I 
will.’ 

Gulch, a deep abrupt ravine, caused by 
the action of water. 

Happen in, to; to happen to come in or 
call. 

Help, a servant. 

High-falutin, inflated speech, bombast. 

Hoe-cake, a cake of Indian meal baked on 
a hoe or before the fire. 

Indian summer, the short season of 
pleasant weather usually occurring 
about the middle of November. 

Johnny cake, a cake made of Indian corn 
meal mixed with milk or water and 
sometimes a little stewed pumpkin. 

Julep, a drink composed of brandy or 
whisky with sugar, pounded ice, and 
some sprigs of mint. 

Loafer, a lounger, a vagabond. 




Americanism 


Amethyst 


Log-rolling , the assembly of several 
parties of wood-eutters to help one of 
them in rolling his logs to the river 
after they are felled and trimmed ; also 
employed in politics to signify a like 
system of mutual co-operation. 

Lot, a piece or division of land, an allot¬ 
ment. 

Lumber, timber sawed and split for use; 
as beams, joists, planks, staves, hoops, 
etc. 

Lynch law, an irregular species of justice 
executed by the populace or a mob, 
without legal authority or trial. 

Mail letters, to; to post letters. 

Make tracks, to; to run away. 

Mitten: to get the mitten is to meet with 
a refusal. 

Mizzle, to; to abscond, or run away. 

Mush, a kind of hasty-pudding. 

Muss, a state of confusion. 

Notions, a term applied to every variety 
of small-wares. 

One-horse: a one-horse thing is a thing 
of no value or importance, a mean and 
trifling thing. 

Picaninny, a negro child. 

Pile, a quantity of money. 

Planks, in a political sense, are the 
several principles which appertain to a 
party; platform is the collection of 
such principles. 

Reckon, to; to suppose, to think. 

Rile, to; to irritate, to drive into a pas¬ 
sion. 

Rock, a stone of any size; a pebble; as to 
throw rocks at a dog. 

Rooster, the common domestic cock. 

Scalawag, a scamp, a scapegrace. 

Shanty, a mean structure such as squat¬ 
ters erect; a temporary hut. 

Skedaddle, to ; to run away ; a word, intro¬ 
duced during the civil war. 

Smart, often used in the sense of con¬ 
siderable, a good deal, as a smart 
chance. 

Soft sawder, flattering, coaxing talk. 

Span of horses, two horses as nearly as 
possible alike, harnessed side by side. 

Spread-eagle style, a compound of exag¬ 
geration, bombast, mixed metaphor, etc. 

Spry, active. 

Stampede, the sudden flight of a crowd or 
number. 

Store, a shop, as a book-store, a grocery 
store. 

Strike oil, to; to come upon petroleum : 
hence to make a lucky hit, especially 
financially. 

Stump speech, a bombastic speech calcu¬ 
lated to please the popular ear, such 
speeches in newly-settled districts being 
often delivered from stumps of trees. 

Sun-up, sunset, sunrise. 

Tall, great, fine(usedby Shakespeare pretty 
10—1 


much in the same sense) ; tall talk i« 
extravagant talk. 

Ticket: to vote the straight ticket is to 
vote for all the men or measures your 
party wishes. 

Truck, the small produce of gardens; 
truck patch, a plot in which the smaller 
fruits and vegetables are raised. 

Ugly, ill tempered, vicious. 

Vamose, to; to run off (from the Spanish 
vamos, let us go). 

Wilt, to; to fade, to decay, to droop, to 
wither. 


American Philosophical So¬ 


ciety Philadelphia, organized in 1744, 
for the promotion of useful 
knowledge, has had enrolled upon its list 
a membership without a parallel in the 
history of American societies. At its 
sesquicentennial, held May 22. 1893, 

delegates from 40 American and 12 Eu¬ 
ropean societies were in attendance, in¬ 
cluding some of the most distinguished 
philosophical and scientific thinkers in 
the world. What this society has accom¬ 
plished in the last century and a half 
may be found in the twenty vols. of 
Transactions and the 100 parts of 
Proceedings issued up to the above 
date and those since issued, forming to a 
great extent the record of America’s 
scientific progress. 

Amp-rirvna (a-mer'i-kus), capital of 
iimeilLUb Sumter county> Georgia, 

64 miles s.E. of Columbus, is an important 
cotton shipping point and is in a sugar¬ 
cane and fruit region. It has chemical 
works and other industries. Pop. 8,063. 

Amerigo Vespucci ves ; 

PUL CDG], 3 

maritime discoverer, after whom America 
was named ; born, 1451, at Florence ; died, 
1512, at Seville. In 1499 he coasted 
along the continent of America for several 
hundred leagues, and the publication of 
his narrative, while the prior discovery 
of Columbus was yet comparatively a 
secret, led to the giving of his name to 
the new continent. 

Ampc Fisher, statesman, born at Ded- 
Massachusetts, in 1758; 
died in 1808; studied law, and became 
prominent in his profession—distin¬ 
guished as a political orator and essayist. 

Ameclinrxr (amz'ber-e). in Massachu- 
Ainebuuiy settSf 36 miles N . of Bos _ 

ton; has large woolen and cotton mills 
and carriage manufactures. Pop. 9,894. 


AmA-Khxrcf (am'e-thist), a violet-blue 
Aiiieuiy&i or purple variety of 

quartz, generally occurring crystallized in 
hexahedral prisms or pyramids, also in 
rolled fragments composed of imperfect 




Amhara 


Ammianus 


prismatic crystals. It is wrought into 
various articles of jewelry. The oriental 
amethyst is a rare violet-colored gem, a 
variety of alumina or corundum, of much 
brilliance and beauty. The name is of 
Greek origin, and expresses some sup¬ 
posed quality in the stone of preventing 
or curing intoxication. 

AmTinrn (am-ha'ra), a district of 
Abyssinia, lying between the 
Tacazzg and the Blue Nile, but of which 
the limits are not well defined. 
AmTiPr^t (am'erst), a village in 
iimnersx Massachusetts, the seat of 
Amherst College (Congregationalist) and 
the State Agricultural College. Pop. 
5,112. 

Amherst a seaport of 

British Burmah, 31 miles 
s. w. of Moulmein, a health resort of Eu¬ 
ropeans. Pop. 3,000. The district of Am¬ 
herst has an area of 15,189 sq. miles. 
It exports rice and teak. 

AmTiPrct Jeffery, Lord, born in 

Amnersi, 1717> died in 1797; dis _ 

tinguished British general, who fought at 
Dettingen and Fontenoy, and commanded 
in America, where he took Louisburg. 
Ticonderoga, and Quebec, and restored the 
British prestige in Canada. He was 
commander-in-chief in America, 1760-63, 
and afterwards Governor of Virginia. 
He was raised to the peerage, became 
commander-in-chief of the British armies, 
and ultimately field-marshal. 

AmViprst William Pitt, first earl, 
xiiiinciJst, nephew of the above; Qov- 

ernor-general of India, 1823; prosecuted 
the first Burmese war, and suppressed 
the Barrackpore mutiny. Born in 1773, 
died in 1857. 

Amianthus k * nd 

of flexible asbestos. See 

Asbestos. 

Amice ( am, i s )> an Oblong piece of 
linen with an embroidered ap¬ 
parel sewed upon it, worn under the alb 
by priests of the Roman Catholic Church 
when engaged in the service of the mass. 

Amicis, Edmondo de (<Jaa-m§'- 

7 c h e s), a n 

Italian author, born at Oneglia in 1846. 
He studied at Cuneo, Turin and Modena; 
entered the Italian army and took part 
in the battle of Custozza, but left the 
service after the occupation of Rome and 
engaged in literature. He wrote racy and 
readable sketches of travel in Holland 
and other countries, also La Vita Mili- 
tare, Novelle and Ribralta. Died March 
11, 1908. 

Amide, Amine < am ' id ’ . a m'in), 

7 names given to a 

series of salts produced by the substitu¬ 
tion of elements or radicals for the 


hydrogen atoms of ammonia; often used 
as terminations of the names of such 
salts. When these hydrogen atoms are 
replaced by acid radicals, the salts are 
called amides, while if the replacing radi¬ 
cals are basic, the salts are termed amines .. 

Amidin, Amidine sub a 

stance procured from wheat and potato 
starch. It forms the soluble or gelatinous 
part of starch. 

AmiPro (a-me-an), a town of France. 

capital of the department of 
Somme, on the railway from Boulogne 
to Paris. It has a citadel, wide and 
regular streets, and several large open 
areas; a cathedral, one of the largest and 
finest Gothic buildings in Europe, founded 
in 1220. Having water communication 
with the sea by the Somme, which is 
navigable for small vessels, it has a large 
trade and numerous important manu¬ 
factures, especially cottons and woolens; 
it was taken by the Germans in 1870. 
Pop. (1906) 78,407.—The Peace of Amiens 
concluded between Great Britain, France, 
Spain, and the Batavian Republic, March 
27, 1802, put an end for a time to the 
great war which had lasted since 1793. 
Amine (am'en), a compound of am- 
n c monia in which one or more 
atoms of hydrogen are replaced by base 
radicals. Thus is formed a series of 
amines, potassamine, ethylamine, etc. 

Amirante Islands n 

group of eleven 
small islands in the Indian Ocean, lying 
southwest of the Seychelles, and forming 
a dependency of Mauritius. 

AmlTxrpVi (am'lok), a seaport in 

iimiwcn North Wales> island of An _ 

glesey. Pop. 2720. 

Ammanati (k ™- ra& - n 4 ’ t f ) ; Bar ™ l °- 

meo, a sculptor and ar¬ 
chitect, born at Florence in 1511, died 
1589; executed the Leda at Florence, a 
gigantic Neptune for St. Mark’s Place 
at Venice, a colossal Hercules at Padua, 
and built Jhe celebrated Trinity Bridge at 
Florence. 

Ammergau (&m'er-gou), a district 

° in Upper Bavaria, hav¬ 
ing its center in the villages of Ober and 
Unter Ammergau. The former village is 
famous on account of the Passion Play 
which is performed there, at intervals 
usually of ten years. 

Ammianus ( am -mi-a'nus>, marcel- 

linus, a Roman his¬ 
torian, born at Antioch in Syria about 
320, died about 390. He wrote in thirty- 
one books (of which the first thirteen are 
lost) a history of the Caesars, from 
Nerva to Valens, which was highly 
thought of by Gibbon for its fidelity. 



Ammon 


Amnion 


Am'mon an ancient Egyptian deity, 
* one of the chief gods of the 
country, identified 
by the Greeks with 
their supreme god 
Zeus, while the Ro¬ 
mans regarded him 
as the representative 
of Jupiter; repre¬ 
sented as a ram, 
as a human be¬ 
ing with a ram’s 
head, or simply 
with the horns of a 
ram. There was a 
celebrated Temple 
of Ammon in the 
Oasis of Siwah in 
the Libyan desert. 

Ammon, Of ^ 

Siwah. 



acteristic of the Trias, Lias, and Oolite 
formations, and sometimes found in im¬ 
mense numbers and of great size. 



Ammon. 


Ammrniifl (am-mo'ni-a), an alkaline 

Ammonia substance> which differs 

from the other alkalies by being gaseous, 
and is hence sometimes called the volatile 
alkali. It is a colorless, pungent gas, com¬ 
posed of nitrogen and hydrogen. It was 
first procured in that state by Priestley, 
who termed it alkaline air. He obtained it 
from sal ammoniac by the action of lime, 
by which method it is yet generally 
prepared. It is used for many pur¬ 
poses, both in medicine and scientific 
chemistry; not, however, in the gaseous 
state, but frequently in solution in water, 
under the names of liquid ammonia , 
ammonium hydroxide , or spirits of harts¬ 
horn. It may be procured naturally 
from putrescent animal substances; ar¬ 
tificially it is chiefly got from the distil¬ 
lation of coal and of refuse animal sub¬ 
stances, such as bones, clippings and 
shavings of horn, hoof, etc. It may also 
be obtained from vegetable matter when 
nitrogen is one of its elements. Sal am¬ 
moniac is the chloride of ammonium, and 
was first obtained at the Temple of 
Ammon by distillation of camels’ dung, 
whence the name ammonia. 

Anunnnianiim (a-mS-ni'a-kum), a 
Ammoniac UIU g Um - res i n0 us exuda¬ 
tion from an umbelliferous plant, the 
Dorema ammonidcum. It has. a fetid 
smell, is inflammable, soluble in water 
and spirit of wine ; used as an antispas- 
modic, stimulant, and expectorant in 
chronic catarrh, bronchitic affections, and 
asthma; also used for plasters. 

A mmnni+P (am'on-it), a fossil Ceph- 
Ammoilite a i op od, belonging to 

the genus Ammonites, allied to the Nau¬ 
tilus, having a many-chambered shell, in 
shape like the curved horns on the an¬ 
cient statues of Jupiter Ammon; cliar- 


Ammonites obtusus. Ammonites varians. 

Ammoriltp<l (am'on-its), a Semitic 

Ammonites race frequently men _ 

tioned in Scripture, descended from Ben 
Ammi, the son of Lot (Gen., xix, 38), 
often spoken of in conjunction with the 
Moabites. A predatory Bedouin race, 
they inhabited the desert country east of 
Gad, their chief city being Rabbath-Am- 
mon (Philadelphia). Wars between the 
Israelites and the Ammonites were fre¬ 
quent ; they were overcome by Jephthah, 
Saul, David, Uzziah, Jotham, etc. They 
appear to have existed as a distinct peo¬ 
ple in the time of Justin Martyr, but have 
subsequently become merged in the ag¬ 
gregate of nameless Arab tribes. 

Ammonium j; um > ’ 

name given to the 
hypothetical base of ammonia, analogous 
to an alkali metal, as potassium. It has 
not been isolated, but may exist in an 
unstable amalgam with mercury. 

Ammo'nius Sac'cas,f os « r h “ k 

lived about a.d. 175-250. Originally a 
porter in Alexandria, he derived his 
epithet from the carrying of sacks of 
corn. The son of Christian parents, he 
abandoned their faith for the polytheistic 
philosophy of Greece. His teaching was 
historically a transition stage between 
Platonism and Neo-Platonism. Among 
his disciples were Plotinus, Longinus, 
Origen, etc. 

Ammunition ( g ®“‘"' n ^* h e ““ 1 ^ military 

A mtipc+v (am'nes-ti), the releasing of 
filmic y a number 0 f persons who 

have been guilty of political offenses 
from the consequence of these offenses. 
In the absence of specific statutes the ex¬ 
ercise of amnesty in the United States 
is assumed to lie with the president, as 
the supreme court has decided in several 
cases. 

Amnioil ( am ' n i-° n )> the innermost 
membrane surrounding the 
fetus of mammals, birds, and reptiles.— 
In botany, a gelatinous fluid in which the 






Amoeba 


Amorphozoa 


embryo of a seed is suspended, and by 
which it is supposed to be nourished. 
Amoeba (a-me'ba), a genus of 
microscopic rhizopodous Pro¬ 
tozoa. of which A. diflluens , common in 
fresh-water ponds and ditches, is the type. 
It exists as a mass of protoplasm, and 
pushes its body out into finger-like proc¬ 
esses or pseudopodia, and by means of 



A, Amoeba proteus, with the pseudopodia pro¬ 
truded, enlarged: n, Nucleus; c, Contractile ves¬ 
icle; v, One of the larger food-vacuoles; en , The 
granular endosarc; ec, The transparent ectosarc; 
a, A cell of an Alga taken in as food (other 
cells of the same Alga are obliquely shaded). 
B, Amoeba radiosa, enlarged. The body shows 
two large vacuoles, but no nucleus or contractile 
vesicle. The long and delicate pseudopodia are 
protruded. 


these moves about or grasps particles of 
food. There is no mouth and food is en¬ 
gulfed within any portion of the soft sar- 
code body. Reproduction takes place by 
fission, or by a single pseudopodium 
detaching itself from the parent body and 
developing into a separate amoeba. 

Amnesia (am-ne'si-a) loss of 

memory; chiefly a symp¬ 
tomatic affection. 

Amol a town of northern 

Persia, 76 miles n. e. of Teheran. 
Extensive ruins tell of former greatness, 
the most prominent being the mausoleum 
of Seyed Quam-u-deen, who died in 1378. 
Pop. estimated at about 10,000. 
Amomum (a-mo'mum). a genus of 
plants of the natural order 
Zingiberaceae (ginger, etc.), natives of 
warm climates, and remarkable for the 
pungency and aromatic properties of their 
seeds. Some of the species yield carda¬ 
moms, others grains of paradise, 


Amontillado (a-mon-til-a'do), a dry 

km( j s herry wine 

of a light color, highly esteemed. 

Am'no or Am'oo-Daria, a river of 
xxm uu, Central Asia. See Oxus. 

Amoo-Daria, ***** 

east of the Amoo and southeast of the 
Sea of Aral; area, 42,850 sq. miles. Pop. 
about 200,000. 

AmOOr or ^mur (a-moor'), one of the 
5 largest rivers of Eastern Asia, 
formed by the junction of the rivers 
Shilka and Argun ; flows first in a south¬ 
eastern and then in a northeastern direc¬ 
tion till it falls into an arm of the Sea 
of Okhotsk, opposite the island of 
Saghalien, after a course of 1,500 miles. 
It forms, for a large portion of its course, 
part of the boundary-line between the 
Russian and the Chinese dominions, and 
is navigable throughout for four months 
in the year.— Amoor Territory. In 1858 
Russia acquired from China the territory 
on the left bank of the Upper and 
Middle Amoor, together with that on both 
banks of the Lower Amoor. The western 
portion of the territory was organized 
as a separate province, with the name 
of the Amoor (area, 173,000 square 
miles; population 20,000). The east¬ 
ern portion was joined to the Maritime 
Province of Eastern Siberia. 

A'mor g0( ^ * ove amon g ^e 

J Romans, equivalent to the 
Greek Eros. 

AmnrP’n (a-mor'go; ancient Amorgos), 
xxmuigu an igland . n the Grecian 

Archipelago, one of the Eastern Cyclades, 
22 miles long, 5 miles broad; area, 106 
square miles; has a town of the same 
name, with a castle, and a large harbor. 
Pop. about 3,500. 

Amorites (am'or-Its), a powerful 
Canaanitish tribe at the 
time of the occupation of the country by 
the Israelites; occupied the whole of 
Gilead and Bashan, and formed two 
powerful kingdoms—a northern, under 
Og, who is called King of Bashan; and a 
southern, under Sihon, called King of the 
Amorites; first attacked and overthrown 
by Joshua; subsequently subdued, and 
made tributary or driven to mingle with 
the Philistines and other remnants of the 
Canaanitish nations. 

Amorphous ( ™" mor ' fus) Rocks or 
r Minerals, those having 

no regular structure, or without crystal¬ 
lization, even in the minutest particles. 

Amorphozoa (a-mor-f5-z5'-a), a term 

r applied to some of the 

lower groups of animals, as the sponges 
and their allies, which have no regular 
symmetrical structure. 




Amortization 


Amphion 


Amortization (a-mor-ti-z&'shun), in 

law, the alienation of 
real property to corporations (that is, in 
mortmain ), prohibited by several English 
statutes. 


AmOS (a'mos), one of the minor 
prophets; flourished under the 
kings Uzziah and Judah and Jeroboam II 
of Israel (b.c. 810 to 784 by the com¬ 
mon chronology). Though engaged in 
the occupations of a peasant, he must 
have had a considerable amount of 
culture, and his book of prophecies has 
high. literary merits. It contains de¬ 
nunciations of Israel and the surrounding 
nations, with promises of the Messiah. 
AmOV an important Chinese 

J trading port, on a small island 
off the southeast coast opposite Formosa; 
has a safe and commodious harbor, and 
its merchants are among the wealthiest 
and most enterprising in China ; one of 
the five ports opened to British com¬ 
merce Jn .1843, now open to all countries. 
Pop. estimated at 300,000. 

Ampelidse (am-pel'i-de). See Chat- 

Arrmprp ( ftp-par ), Andr£-Marie, a 
a c French mathematician and 

founder of the science of electrodynamics, 
born 1775, died 1836; professor of 
mathematics at the Polytechnic School and 
of physics at the College of France. 
What is known as Ampere’s Theory is 
that magnetism consists in the existence 
of electric currents circulating round the 
particles of magnetic bodies, being in dif¬ 
ferent directions round different particles 
when the bodies are unmagnetized, but 
all in the same direction when they are 
magnetized. His name has been given to 
the unit used in measuring the electric 
current. 


Arrmprp Jean Jacques Joseph 
" Antoine, historian and 

professor of French literature in the 
College of France; the only son of Andrg- 
Marie Ampfcre; born at Lyons 1800, died 
1864; chief works Histoire Litteraire de 
la France avant la 12° siecle (1S39) : 
Introduction a VHistoire de la Litterature 
frangaise au moyen-dge (1841) ; Littera¬ 
ture, Voyages et Poesies (1833) ; La 
Ordce, Rome et Dante, Etudes Litteraires 
d'apr&s Nature; VHistoire romaine a 
Rome, four vols. 8vo (1856-64). 

Amphibia <am-fib'i-a), a class of 
r vertebrate animals, which 

in their early life breathe by gills or 
branchiae, and afterwards partly or en¬ 
tirely by lungs. The Frog, breathing in 
its tadpole state by gills and afterwards 
throwing off these organs and breathing 
entirely by lungs in its adult state, is an 
example of the latter phase of amphibian 


existence. The Proteus of the under¬ 
ground caves of Central Europe ex¬ 
emplifies forms in which the gills of early 
life are retained throughout life, and in 



Tailed Amphibians, a, Siren lacertina; b, Am. 
riiiuma, showing the four minute limbs; c, Meno 
>ranchus maculatus. (After Mivart.) 


which lungs are developed in addition to 
the gills. A second character of this 
group consists in the presence of two 
occipital ‘ condyles,’ or processes by 
means of which the skull articulates with 
the spine or vertebral column; reptiles 
possessing one condyle only. The class is 
divided into four orders: the Ophiomorpha 
(or serpentiform), represented by the 
Blindworms, in which limbs are wanting 
and the body is snake-like ; the Urodela or 
‘ Tailed ’ Amphibians, including the 
Newts, Proteus, Siren, etc.; the Anoura, 
or Tailless Amphibia, represented by the 
Frogs and Toads; and the Labyrintho- 
dontia, which includes the extinct forms 
known as Labyrinthodons. See Batra- 
chia. 

Amphictyonic *£> £“> 

cil), in ancient Greece, a confederation 
of tribes for the. protections of religious 
worship, but which also discussed ques¬ 
tions of international law and mat¬ 
ters affecting their political union. The 
most important was that of the twelve 
northern tribes which met alternately at 
Delphi and Thermopylae. The tribes sent 
two deputies each, who assembled with 
great solemnity ; composed the public dis¬ 
sensions, and the quarrels of individual 
cities, by force or persuasion; punished 
civil and criminal offenses, and particu¬ 
larly transgressions of the law of nations, 
and violations of the temple of Delphi. 
Its calling on the States to punish the 
Phocians for plundering Delphi caused 
the Sacred wars, 595-586, 448-447, 357- 
346 b. c. 

Amphion ( am 'fi ,on )> in Greek mythol- 
“ ogy, son of Zeus and 






Amphioxus 


Amphiuma 


Antiope, and husband of Niobe; had 
miraculous skill in music, being taught 
by Mercury, or, according to others, by 
Apollo. In poetic legend he is said to 
have availed himself of his skill when 
building the walls of Thebes—the stones 
moving and arranging themselves in 
proper position at the sound of his lyre. 

Amphioxus ( c ®“' t fi ' ok ' sus) - See Lan ' 

Am-nhiuoda (am-fip'6-da), an order of 
xlllipilipuucl sessile _ eyed malacostra- 

can crustaceans, with feet directed partly 



Amphipoda.—1, Shore-jumper (Orchestia lit- 
toralis ). 2, Portion showing the respiratory 
organs a a a. 

forwards and partly backwards. Many 
species are found in springs and rivulets; 
others in salt water. The sand-hopper and 
shore-jumper are examples. 


ants and earthworms, and were formerly 
but erroneously deemed poisonous. 

Am-nhicpii (am-fis'i-I; Gr. arnphi , on 
illlipillbLl j 30t j 1 s j des> and skid' shad¬ 
ow), a term sometimes applied to the 
inhabitants of the intertropical regions, 
whose shadows at noon in one part of the 
year are cast to the north and in the 
other to the south, according as the sun 
is in the southern or northern signs. 

Amphitheater 

of an oval form without a roof, having a 
central area (the arena) encompassed 
with rows of seats, rising higher as they 
receded from the center, on which people 
used to sit to view the combats of 
gladiators and of wild beasts, and other 
sports. The Colosseum at Rome was the 
largest of all the ancient amphitheaters, 
being capable of containing from 50,000 
to 80,000 persons. That at Verona is one 
of the best examples remaining. Its 
dimensions are 502 feet by 401, and 98 
feet high. The name means ‘ both-ways 
theater,’ or ‘ theater all round,’ the 
theater forming only a semicircular 
edifice. 



Amphitheater at Pompeii. 


Amphiprostyle (am-fip'ro-stii) in 
r * J architecture, said of 
a structure having the form of an ancient 
Greek or Roman oblong rectangular 
temple, with a prostyle or portico on 
each of its ends or fronts, but with no 
columns on its sides or flanks. 

Amphisbaena both 

ways, and baino, to go), a genus of 
serpentiform, limbless, lacertilian reptiles ; 
body cylindrical, destitute of scales, and 
divided into numerous annular segments; 
the tail obtuse, and scarcely to be dis¬ 
tinguished from the head, whence the be¬ 
lief that it moved equally well with either 
end foremost. There are several species, 
found in tropical America. They feed on 


Amphitrite 

Oceanus and Tethys, or of Nereus and 
Doris, and wife of Poseidon (or Nep¬ 
tune), represented as drawn in a chariot 
of shells by Tritons, with a trident in her 
hand. 

Amphitryon "n-„n) 

son of Alcaeus, and husband of Alcmena. 
Plautus, and after him MoliSre, have 
made an amour of Zeus with Alcmena 
the subject of amusing comedies. 

Amphiuma (am-fi-fl'ma), a genus of 
A amphibians which fre¬ 

quent the lakes and stagnant waters of 
North America. The adults retain the 















Amphora 


Amsterdam 


clefts at which the gills of the tadpole 
projected. 

Am'nhora( am,f5 ' ra )> a vessel used by 

Ainpnuid, the Greeks and Romang for 

holding liquids; commonly tall and nar¬ 
row, with two handles and a pointed end 



Filling an Amphora. 

which fitted into a stand or was stuck 
in the ground to enable them to stand 
upright; also as a cinerary urn, and 
as a liquid measure,—-Gr. = 9 gallons ; 
Rom. = 6 gallons. 

Amplexicaul tt‘i 

embraces and nearly surrounds the stem. 

Amolitude (am'pli-tud), in astron- 
Xliupiiiuuc omy> the distance of any 

celestial body (when referred by a second¬ 
ary circle to the horizon) from the east 
or west points. 

Amnnllfl (am-pul'a). in antiquity, a 

xiiURUiia veggel bellying out Hke a 

that contained unguents for the bath; 
also a vessel for drinking at table. The 
ampulla has also been employed for 
ceremonial purposes, such as holding the 
oil or chrism used in various church rites 
and for anointing monarchs at their 
coronation. The ampulla of the English 
sovereigns now in use is an eagle, weigh¬ 
ing about 10 oz., of the purest chased gold, 
which passed through various hands to 
the Black Prince. 

Amrmtntinn (am-pu-ta'shun), in sur- 

iimpuiaiion gery? p that operation by 

which a member is separated from the 
body according to the rules of the science. 
AmvanH (am-ra-5'te), a town of Brit- 

Amraou, ish India in BerSr . it is 

celebrated for its cotton, and is a place 
of good trade. Pop. about 38,000. Also 
a district of the same name. 

Amvifcit* or Amritsar (um'rit-sar; 

Allllllbil, , the poQl of immorta iity»), 

a flourishing commercial town of Hin¬ 
dustan, capital of a district of the same 
name, in the Punjab, the principal place 
of the religious worship of the Sikhs. It 


has considerable manufactures of shawls 
and silks; and receives its name from the 
sacred pond constructed by Ram Das. the 
apostle of the Sikhs, in which the Sikhs 
and other Hindus immerse themselves 
that they may be purified from all sin. 
Pop. 162,528. 

AmrU ( am ' ra h originally an opponent 
and subsequently a zealous sup¬ 
porter of Mohammed and one of the 
.ablest of the Mohammedan warriors. He 
brought Egypt under the power of the 
Caliph Omar in 638, and governed it 
wisely till his death in 663. The burning 
of the famous Alexandrian Library has 
been generally attributed to him, though 
only on the authority of a writer who 
lived six centuries later. 

Amsterdam '"tTf thf A £ 

stel’), one of the chief commercial cities 
of Europe, capital of Holland (but not 
the residence of the king), situated at the 
confluence of the Amstel with the Y or Ij 
(pronounced as eye), an arm of the 
Zuider Zee. On account of the lowness 
of the site of the city, the greater part of 
it is built on piles. It is divided by 
numerous canals into about 90 islands, 
which are connected by nearly 300 
bridges. Many of the streets have a canal 
in the middle with broad brick-paved 
quays on either side, planted with rows 
of trees; the houses are generally of 
brick, many of them six or seven stories 



high, with pointed gables turned to the 
streets. Among the public buildings are 
the old stadthouse, now a royal palace, 
the interior of which is decorated bv the 
Dutch painters and sculptors of the 
seventeenth century with their master- 















Amsterdam 


Amygdaloid 


pieces; the justiciary hall, an imitation 
of a Greek temple; the town hall (four¬ 
teenth century); the exchange; and the 
Palace of National Industry. Among its 
numerous industries may be mentioned as 
a specialty the cutting and polishing of 
diamonds. The harbor, formed by the Y, 
lies along the whole of the north side of 
the city, and is surrounded by various 
docks and basins. The trade is very 
great, being much facilitated by the great 
ship-canal (15 m. long), connecting the' 
Y directly with the North Sea. Another 
canal, the North Holland Canal (46 m. 
long, 20 feet deep), connects Amsterdam 
with the Helder. Between the harbor 
and the Zuider Zee the Y is now crossed 
by a great dam in which are locks to 
admit vessels and regulate the amount of 
water in the North Sea Canal. During 


Amnet' Amuk, to run, a phrase ap- 
* plied to natives of the East¬ 
ern Archipelago who are occasionally seen 
to rush out in a frantic state, making 
indiscriminate and murderous assaults on 
all that come in their way. 

Amnlf*t (am'u-let), a piece of stone, 
metal, etc., marked with cer¬ 
tain figures or characters, which people 
in some countries wear as a protection 
against diseases and enchantments. 
Arrmnrlcpn (a'mund-sen), Raold, an 
1 Arctic explorer, born at 
Borje, Norway, in 1872; became a lieu¬ 
tenant in the navy. He joined the Bel- 
gica expedition to the Antarctic seas, 
1897-99, and left Christiania in 1903 for 
the Arctic seas. After two years’ search 
he succeeded in locating the north mag¬ 
netic pole, in King William’s land. He 



Amsterdam—Scene on the Amstel. 


the 17th and 18th centuries Amsterdam 

was one of the most flourishing cities 

in the world. Its forced alliance with 

France ruined its trade, but since 1813 

its commerce has revived. Pop. 557,614. 

AmstPT’fl A m a „ Ulster Co., 

•fimbtei aain, New Yorkj on th ^ 

Mohawk river, 33 miles n. w. of Albany. 
It has extensive carpet and rug factories, 
large broom, linseed oil, knit goods, and 
other factories. Pop. 31,267. 

Amsterdam, g**- 


Amsterdam Island, a sma11 . andal - 

7 most inacces¬ 
sible island in the Indian Ocean, about 
half-way in a direct line between the 
Cape of Good Hope and Tasmania. 

Am'u. See Amoo, Oxus. 


then carried his little vessel, the Gjoa , 
to Bering Strait, reaching there in 1906, 
and being thus the first to navigate the 
northwest passage from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific. It had been traversed by 
Robert McClure in 1851, but only partly 
by ship. In 1910 he projected a voyage 
to the Arctic Sea, but changed his plan 
and sailed to the Antarctic, where, on 
December 14, 1911, he succeeded in reach¬ 
ing the South Pole. 

Amur'. See Amoor. 


Amurath va-mu-rat> - vfvxfLu, me 

name of several Ottoman 
sultans. See Ottoman Empire. 

Amygdaloid (a-mig'da-ioid; Gr. 

v ° a my g d a l e, an al¬ 

mond), a term applied to an igneous rock, 
especially trap, containing round or al- 

























Amygdalus 


Anabasis 


mond-shaped vesicles or cavities partly 
or wholly filled w T ith crystalline nodules of 
various minerals, particularly calcareous 
spar, quartz, agate, zeolite, chlorite, etc. 

Amverdalus ( a - mi g'da-lus), the genus 

ximyguaiua t0 which the almond be . 
longs. 

Amvl in chemistry, a hydro- 

** carbon radical believed to exist 
in many compounds, especially the fusel- 
oil series, and having the formula C 5 II n — 
Amyl Nitrite , or Nitrite of Amyl, an 
amber-colored fluid, smelling and tasting 
like essence of pears, which has been em¬ 
ployed as an anaesthetic and also in re¬ 
lieving cardiac distress, as in angina pec¬ 
toris. 

AmvlPTlP (am'i-len), an ethereal 
-cxiiajacaac Hquid with an aromatic 

odor, prepared from fusel-oil (C 5 H 10 ). It 
possesses anaesthetic properties, and has 
been tried as a substitute for chloroform, 
but is very dangerous. 

Amvlic ( a_mil ' ik ) Alcohol, one of the 
products of the fermentation 
of grain, etc., commonly known by the 
name of fusel-oil (which see). 

Amvlnid (am'i-loid), is a term equiv- 
xaiiijauau. alent to ‘starchy.’ Amy¬ 
loids are substances like starch, sugar, 
gum, etc., composed of carbon, hydrogen, 
and oxygen, the latter two in the pro¬ 
portions found in water. They occur 
largely in plants, and the animal body is 
a mixture of proteids, fats, and amy¬ 
loids, or carbohydrates. 

Amyridaceas 

consisting of tropical trees or shrubs, the 
leaves, bark, and fruit of which abound 
in fragrant resinous and balsamic juices. 
Myrrh, frankincense, and the gum-elemi 
of commerce are among their products. 
Among the chief genera of the order are 
Amyris, Balsamodendron , Boswellia , and 
Canarium. 

Alia ( a,Qa * a ' na b the neuter plural ter- 
mination of Latin adjectives in 
anus, often forming an affix with the 
names of eminent men to denote a collec¬ 
tion of their memorable sayings—thus 
Scaligeriana, Johnsoniana, the sayings of 
Scaliger, of Johnson; or to denote a col¬ 
lection of anecdotes, or gossipy matter, as 
in boxiana. Hence, as an independent 
noun, books recording such sayings; the 
sayings themselves. 

Anabaptists 

to rebaptize), a name given to a Chris¬ 
tian sect by their adversaries, because, as 
they objected to infant baptism, they re¬ 
baptized those who joined their body. 
The founder of the sect appears to have 
been Nicolas Storch, a disciple of 


Luther, who seems to have aimed also 
at the reorganization of society based on 
civil and political equality. Gathering 
round him a number of fiery spirits, 
among whom was Thomas Miinzer, he 
incited the peasantry of Suabia and 
Franconia to insurrection—the doctrine 
of a community of goods being now added 
to their creed. This insurrection was 
quelled in 1525, when Miinzer was put to 
the torture and beheaded. After the 
death of Miinzer the sectaries dispersed in 
all directions, spreading their doctrines 
wherever they went. In 1534 the town 
of Munster in Westphalia became their 
center of action. Under the leadership of 
Bockhold and Matthias their numbers in¬ 
creased daily, and being joined by the 
restless spirits of the adjoining towns, 
they soon made themselves masters of the 
town and expelled their adversaries. 
Matthias became their orophet, but he fell 
in a sally against the Bishop of Munster, 
Count Waldeek, who had laid siege to 
the city. Bockhold then became leader, 
assuming the name of John of Leyden, 
King of the New Jerusalem, and Munster 
became a theater of all the excesses of 
fanaticism, lust, and cruelty. The town 
was eventually taken (June, 1535), and 
Bockhold and a great many of his par¬ 
tisans suffered death. This was the last 
time that the movement assumed any¬ 
thing like political importance. In the 
meantime some of the apostles, who were 
sent out by Bockhold to extend the limits 
of his kingdom, had been successful in 
various places, and many independent 
teachers, who preached the same doc¬ 
trines, continued active in the work of 
founding a new empire of pure Christians. 
They rejected the practice of polygamy, 
community of goods, and intolerance to¬ 
wards those of different opinions which 
had prevailed in Munster; but they en¬ 
joined upon their adherents the other 
doctrines of the early Anabaptists, and 
certain heretical opinions in regard to the 
humanity of Christ, occasioned by the 
controversies of that day about the sacra¬ 
ment. The application of the term 
Anabaptist to the general body of Bap¬ 
tists throughout the world is unwar¬ 
ranted, the Baptists repudiating the name, 
as they claim to baptize according to the 
original institution of the rite, and never 
repeat baptism in the case of those who 
in their opinion have been so baptized. 
Ana has (an'a-bas). See Climbing- 
perch. 

Anabasis (a-nab'a-sis, ‘a going up*), 
Ana oasis the Greek title of Xenophon’s 

celebrated account of the expedition of 
Cyrus the Younger against his brother 
Artaxerxes, King of Persia. The title is 



Anableps 


Anaesthetics 


also given to Arrian’s work which re¬ 
cords the campaigns of Alexander the 
Great. 

Anahlens (an'a-bleps), a genus of 
Aiictuicpa fishes of the perch familyf 

found in the rivers of Guiana, consisting 
of but one species, remarkable for a 
peculiar structure of the eyes, in which 
there is a division of the iris and cornea, 
by transverse ligaments forming two 
pupils, and making the whole eye appear 
double. The young are brought forth 
alive. 

Ana holism (an-ab'6-lizm), a term in- 
dicating the constructive 
processes which go on within the proto¬ 
plasm of animal bodies, by which the food 
materials, beginning at a low level in 
organic chemistry, pass through an as¬ 
cending series of growing complexity until 
fully converted into living matter. 

Anacanthini 

neg. prefix an, and 
akantha, a spine), an order of osseous 
fishes, including the cod, plaice, etc., with 
spineless fins, cycloid or ctenoid scales, 
the ventral fins either absent or below the 
pectorals, and ductless swim-bladder. 

Anacar diaceae * an-a-kar-di-a'se-e), 

uiiaviuiuuv/vtt; a natural order of 
plants, consisting of tropical trees and 
shrubs which secrete an acrid resinous 
juice, which is often used as a varnish. 
Mastic, Japan lacquer, and Martaban 
varnish are some of their products. The 
cashoo or cashew (genus Anacardium ), 
the pistacia, sumach, mango, etc., are 
members of the order. 

Anarliarisi (a-nak'a-ris), a genus of 

Anacnans plants> nat ; orde ° Hydro _ 

charidaceae, the species of which grow in 
ponds and streams of fresh water; water- 
thyme or water-weed. A. Alsinastrum 
has been introduced from North America 
into European (including British) rivers, 
canals, and ponds, and by its rapid 
growth in dense tangled masses tends to 
choke them so as materially to impede 
navigation. 

Anachronism (an-ak'ron-izm) an 
error of chronology by 
which things are represented as coexisting 
which did not coexist; applied also to 
anything foreign to or out of keeping with 
a specified time. Thus it is an anachron¬ 
ism when Shakespere. in Troilus and 
Cressida, makes Hector quote Aristotle. 
Anaconda (an-a-kon'da), the popular 
name of two of the largest 
species of the serpent tribe, viz., a 
Ceylonese species of the genus Python 
(P-ttgns), said to have been met with 
SS feet long; and Eunectes murinus, a 
native of tropical America, allied to the 
boa-constrictor, and the largest of the 


serpent tribe, attaining the length of 40 
feet. 

Ana POP da a cit y’ capital of Deer 
illldOOIlUd, Lodge county> Montana, 

the center of an active copper and silver 
mining district. It has the largest copper 
smelting and refining plant in the world. 
Pop. 10,134. 

Anaprpnn (a-nak're-on), an amatory 
Aiidcieuii lyric Greek poet of the 

sixth century b.c., native of Teos, in 
Ionia. Only a few fragments of his 
works have come down to us; the collec¬ 
tion of odes that usually passes under the 
name of Anacreon is mainly the produc¬ 
tion of a later time. 

Anadyomene (an-a-di-om'e-ne; Greek, 

^ ‘she who comes 

forth’), a name given to Aphrodite 
(Venus) when she was represented as 
rising from the sea, as in the celebrated 
painting by Apelles, painted for the 
temple of JSsculapius at Cos, and after¬ 
wards in the temple of Julius Caesar at 
Rome. 

Ann dvr (a-na'der), the most easterly 

of the larger rivers of Siberia 

and of all Asia; rises in the Stanovoi 

Mountains, and falls into the Gulf of 

Anadyr; length, 600 miles. 

Anfpmin (a-ne'mi-a; Greek, ‘want of 
xiiicciiiid blood , )? a medical term 

applied to an unhealthy condition of the 
body, in which there is a diminution of 
the red corpuscles which the blood should 
contain. The principal symptoms are 
paleness and general want of color in 
the skin, languor, emaciation, want of 
appetite, fainting, palpitation, etc. 

Anaesthesia (an-es-thezi-a), Aps- 

thesis, a state of in¬ 
sensibility to pain, produced by inhaling 
chloroform, ether, etc., or by the hypoder¬ 
mic injection of other anaesthetic agents. 
Stovaine has been injected into the 
spinal canal for anaesthesia, the patient 
retaining consciousness during the opera¬ 
tion. Cocaine is a valuable agent for 
producing local anaesthesia. 

Anaesthetics (»“-«-thet'iks), medi- 

cal agents employed 
for the production of insensibility, espe¬ 
cially during surgical operations. Va¬ 
rious agents have been employed for 
this purpose from the earliest times, but 
the scientific use of anaesthetics may be 
said to date from 1800, when Sir 
Humphry Davy made experiments on the 
anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide, 
and recommended its use in surgery. In 
1818 Faraday established the anaesthetic 
properties of sulphuric ether, but this 
agent made no advance bevond the region 
of experiment, till 1844, when Dr. Wells, 
a dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, ap- 





The anaconda is the largest of the boas of South America. It lives to a great age and attains 
an enormous size. It likes to be near the water, and fastening itself to a log lies in wait for fish, 
which it is quick to seize. 


ANACONDA FISHING 





Anagallis 


Analysis 


plied the inhalation of sulphuric ether in 
the extraction of teeth, but owing to some 
misadventure did not persevere with it. 
The example was followed in 1846 by Dr. 
Morton, a Boston dentist, who also ex¬ 
tended the use of ether to other surgical 
operations. In 1847 Sir James Simpson 
made the first application of ether in a 
case of midwifery. Towards the end of 
the same year Simpson had his attention 
called to the anaesthetic efficacy of chloro¬ 
form, and announced it as a superior 
agent to ether. This agent has since been 
the most extensively used anaesthetic, 
though the use of ether still largely pre¬ 
vails in the United States. In their 
general effects ether and chloroform are 
very similar; but the latter tends to 
enfeeble the action of the heart more 
readily than the former. For this reason 
great caution has to be used in adminis¬ 
tering chloroform where there is weak 
heart action from disease. Local anaes¬ 
thesia is produced by isolating the part 
of the body to be operated upon, and 
producing insensibility of the nerves in 
that locality. Dr. Richardson’s method 
is to apply the spray of ether, which, by 
its rapid evaporation, chills and freezes 
the tissues and produces complete anaes¬ 
thesia. Ethyl chloride is used in the 
same way. A valuable local anaesthetic 
now employed is cocaine. See Coca. 

A a oral lie (an-a-gal'is) the Pimpernel 

iinagdlllb genug of plants# gee 

Pimpernel. 

Anacr-m (ff-nan'ye). a town of Italy, 
province of Rome: the seat of 
a bishopric erected in 487. Pop. 10,059. 

Anacrrflm (an'a-gram), the transposi- 
-tlltdgiain t j on tbe Otters of a 

word or words so as to form a new word 
or phrase, a connection in meaning being 
frequently preserved; thus, evil, vile; 
Horatio Nelson, Honor est a Nilo (honor 
is from the Nile). 

A-nail liar* (a-nff-wak'; Mexican, ‘near 
illiailUcll, the water ») f an old Mexi¬ 
can name applied to the plateau of the 
city of Mexico, from the lakes situated 
there, generally elevated from 6,000 to 
9,000 feet above the sea. 

An a Vim (an'a-kim) the posterity of 
1 Anak, the son of Arba, noted 
in sacred history for their fierceness and 
loftiness of stature. Their stronghold 
was Kirjath-arba or Hebron, which was 
taken and destroyed by Caleb and the 
tribe of Judah. 

Analentic (an-a-lep'tik), a restorative 
** or invigorating medicine 

or diet. 

Analogue ( an 'a-log), in comparative 
& anatomy an organ in one 
s’^ies or group having the same function 


as an organ of different structure in 
another species or group, as the wing of 
a bird and that of an insect, both serving 
for flight. Organs in different animals 
having a similar anatomical structure, 
development, and relative position, inde¬ 
pendent of function or form, such as the 
arm of a man and the wing of a bird, 
are termed homologues. 

Analogy (an-al'b-ji), is the mode of 
reasoning from resemblance 
to resemblance. When we find on atten¬ 
tive examination resemblances in objects 
apparently diverse, and in which at first 
no such resemblances were discovered, a 
presumption arises that other resem¬ 
blances may be found by further examina¬ 
tion in these or other objects likewise 
apparently diverse. It is on the belief 
in a unity in nature that all inferences 
from analogy rest. The general inference 
from analogy is always perfectly valid. 
Wherever there is resemblance, similarity 
or identity of cause somewhere may be 
justly inferred ; but to infer the particular 
cause without particular proof is always 
to reason falsely. Analogy is of great use 
and constant application in science, in 
philosophy, and in the common business 
of life. 

A n a 1 xrcic (an-al'i-sis), the resolution 
xinaiy&ib of an object> W hether of the 

senses or the intellect, into its component 
elements. In philosophy it is the mode 
of resolving a compound idea into its 
simple parts, in order to consider them 
more distinctly, and arrive at a more 
precise knowledge of the whole. It is 
opposed to synthesis, by which we com¬ 
bine and class our perceptions, and con¬ 
trive expressions for our thoughts, so 
as to represent their several divisions, 
classes and relations. 

Analysis, in mathematics, is, in the 
widest sense, the expression and develop¬ 
ment of the functions of quantities by 
calculation; in a narrower sense the 
resolving of problems by algebraic equa¬ 
tions. The analysis of the ancients was 
exhibited only in geometry, and made use 
only of geometrical assistance, whereby 
it is distinguished from the analysis of 
the moderns, which extends to all measur¬ 
able objects, and expresses in equations 
the mutual dependence of magnitudes. 
Analysis is divided into lower and higher, 
the lower comprising, besides arithmetic 
and algebra, the doctrines of functions, 
of series, combinations, logarithms, and 
curves, the higher comprising the differen¬ 
tial and integral calculus, and the calculus 
of variations. 

In chemistry, analysis is the process of 
decomposing a compound substance with a 
view to determine either (a) what ele- 



Anam 


Anarchists 


merits it contains (qualitative analysis), 
or (6) how much of each element is 
present (quantitative analysis). Thus 
by the first process we learn that water 
is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, 
and by the second that it consists of one 
part of hydrogen by weight to eight parts 
of oxygen. 

Anam ( a * nam, )> a country of Asia 
occupying the e. side of the 
Southeastern or Indo-Chinese Peninsula, 
along the China Sea, having a length of 
about 850 miles, with a breadth varying 
from over 400 miles in the n. to 100 
in the middle. It is composed of three 
parts: Tonquin in the n. ; Cochin-China 
in the s.; and the territory of the Laos 
tribes, s. w. of Tonquin (together, area, 
170,000 square miles, pop. 15,000,000, 
9,000,000 being in Tonquin). The coast 
is considerably indented, especially at the 
mouths of the rivers, where it affords 
many commodious harbors. Tonquin is 
mountainous on the north, but in the east 
is nearly level, terminating towards the 
sea in an alluvial plain yielding good 
crops of rice, cotton, fruits, ginger, and 
spices, and a great variety of varnish- 
trees, palms, etc. The principal river is 
the Song-ka, which has numerous trib¬ 
utaries, many of them being joined togeth¬ 
er by canals, both for irrigation and com¬ 
merce. Tonquin is rich in gold, silver, 
copper, and iron. Cochin-China is, gen¬ 
erally speaking, unproductive, but con¬ 
tains many fertile spots, in which grain, 
leguminous plants, sugar-cane, cinnamon, 
etc., are produced in great abundance. 
Agriculture is the chief occupation, but 
many of the inhabitants are engaged 
in the spinning and weaving of cotton 
and silk into coarse fabrics, the prepara¬ 
tion of varnish, iron-smelting, and the 
construction of ships or junks. The in¬ 
habitants are said to be the ugliest of 
the Mongoloid races of the peninsula, 
being under the middle size and less 
robust than the surrounding peoples. 
Their language is monosyllabic, and is 
connected with the Chinese. The religion 
of the majority is Buddhism, but the 
educated classes hold the doctrines of 
Confucius. The principal towns are 
Hanoi, the capital of Tonquin, and Hue, 
the capital of Cochin-China and formerly 
of the whole empire. Anam was con¬ 
quered by the Chinese in 214 B.C., but 
in 1428 a.d. it completely won its inde¬ 
pendence. The French began to interfere 
actively in its affairs in 1847 on the plea 
of protecting the native Christians. By 
the treaties of 1862 and 1867 they ob¬ 
tained the southern and most productive 
part of Cochin-China, subsequently known 
as French Cochin-China; and in 1874 


they obtained large powers over Tonquin, 
notwithstanding the protests of the 
Chinese. Finally, in 1883 Tonquin was 
ceded to France, and next year Anam 
was declared a French protectorate. 
After a short period of hostilities with 
China the latter recognized the French 
claims, and Tonquin is now directly 
administered by France, while Anam is 
entirely under French direction. 

Anamorphosis <“<“£’ * 

drawing executed in such a manner as to 
present a distorted image of the object 
represented, but which, when viewed from 
a certain point, or reflected by a curved 
mirror or through a polyhedron, shows 
the object in its true proportions. 

An'anas. See Pine-apple. 

A norm (iin-a-pa'), an important sea- 
AlldJJct port and fortified town in 
Russian Circassia, on the Black Sea, a 
station of the Russian navy. Pop. 6,676. 

(an'-a-pest). in prosody, a 
xxnajjecat foot cons j s ti n g of two short 

and one long syllable, or two unaccented 
and one accented syllable. Example: 


The As-syr-ian came down, etc. 

ArmiVlflstv ( aa 'a-plas-ti), a surgical 
AiidjJld&iy operation to repair su¬ 
perficial lesions, or solutions of con¬ 
tinuity, by the employment of adjacent 
healthy structure. Artificial noses, etc., 
are thus made. 

Anarajapoora °' 

ruined city, the ancient capital of Ceylon, 
built about 540 b.c., and said to have 
covered an area of 300 square miles, 
doubtless a great exaggeration. The spa¬ 
cious main streets seemed to have been 
lined by elegant structures. There are 
still several dagobas in tolerable preserva¬ 
tion, but the great object of interest is the 
sacred Bo-tree planted over 2000 years, 
and probably the oldest historical tree in 
the world, but shattered by a storm in 
1887. 

AnarpTii^tc (an'ar-kists), a revolu- 

Anarcmsts tionary sect or body set _ 

ting forth as the social ideal the extreme 
form of individual freedom, and holding 
that all government is injurious and im¬ 
moral, that the destruction of every social 
form now existing must be the first step 
to the creation of a new world. Their 
recognition as an independent sect may be 
dated from the secession of Bakunin 
and his followers from the Social Demo¬ 
crats at the congress of The Hague in 
1872, since which they have maintained an 
active propaganda. Their principal jour- 




Anarthropoda 


Anatomy 


nals have been La Revolte (Paris), the 
Freiheit (New York), Liberty , (Boston), 
and the Anarchist (London). The con¬ 
gress at London in 1881 decided that all 
means were justifiable as against the 
organized forces of modern society. The 
murder of several European monarchs and 
of President McKinley is attributed to 
adherents of this body. 

Anarthropoda ^ 

divisions (the Arthropoda being the 
other) of the Annulosa, or ringed animals, 
in which there are no articulated ap¬ 
pendages. It includes the leeches, earth¬ 
worms, tube-worms, etc. 

Alias ( a ' nas )* a S enus web-footed 
birds, containing the true ducks. 

Anasarca (an-a-sar'ka). See Dropsy. 
Anastasias I ( n ^ s ;T^ e ‘^ s) v Em ‘ 

peror of the East, suc¬ 
ceeded Zeno, a.d. 491, at the age of sixty. 
He was a member of the imperial life¬ 
guard, and owed his elevation to Ariadne, 
widow of Zeno, whom he married. He 
distinguished himself by suppressing the 
combats between men and wild beasts in 
the arena, abolishing the sale of offices, 
building the fortifications of Constanti¬ 
nople, etc. His support of the heretical 
Eutychians led to a dangerous rebellion 
and his anathematization by the pope. 
He died a. d. 518. 

Anastatica (an-a-stat'i-ka), a genus 

of cruciferous plants, in¬ 
cluding the Rose of Jericho (A. hierochun- 
tica). See Rose of Jericho. 

Anastatic Printing, t a ai “? n d | of f °b; 

simile impressions of any printed page or 
engraving by transferring it to a plate of 
zinc, which, on being subjected to the 
action of an acid, is etched or eaten 
away with the exception of the parts 
covered with the ink, which parts, being 
thus protected from the action of the 
acid, are left in relief so that they can 
readily be printed from. 

Anastomosis (an-as-to-mo'sis), in an- 

. # imals and plants, the 

inosculation of vessels, or the opening of 
one vessel into another, as an artery into 
another artery, or a vein into a vein. 
By means of anastomosis, if the course of 
a fluid is arrested in one vessel it can 
proceed along others. It is by anastomo¬ 
sis that circulation is reestablished in 
amputated limbs, and in aneurism when 
the vessel is tied. 

Anathema (a-nath'e-ma), originally 

. , a gift hung up in a tem¬ 

ple (Greek anatithemi, ‘to lay up’), and 
dedicated to some god, a votive offering; 
but it gradually came to be used for 


expulsion, curse. The Roman Catholic 
Church pronounces the sentence of anath¬ 
ema against heretics, schismatics, and 
all who willfully pursue a course of con¬ 
duct condemned by the church. The sub¬ 
ject of the anathema is declared an out¬ 
cast from the church, all the faithful are 
forbidden to associate with him, and utter 
destruction is denounced against him, both 
body and soul. 


Anatidae (a;nat'i-de)I, a family of 
swimming birds, including 
the ducks, swans, geese, etc. 

Anatolia (an-a-toll-a; from Gr. 

anatole, the sunrise, the 
Orient), the modern name of Asia Minor. 
See Asia Minor. 


Anatomy ( a - aa t'o-mi), in the literal 
J sense, means simply a cut¬ 
ting up, but is now generally applied both 
to the art of dissecting or artificially 
separating the different parts of an 
organized body (vegetable or animal) 
with a view to discover their situation, 
structure, and economy; and to the 
science which treats of the internal struc¬ 
ture of organized bodies. The branch 
which treats of the structure of plants is 
called vegetable anatomy or phytotomy, 
and that which treats of the structure of 
animals animal anatomy or zootomy , a 
special branch of the latter being human 
anatomy or anthropotomy. Comparative 
anatomy is the science which compares 
the anatomy of different classes or species 
of animals, as that of man with quadru¬ 
peds, or that of quadrupeds with fishes; 
while special anatomy treats of the con¬ 
struction, form, and structure of parts in 
a single animal. The special anatomy 
of an animal may be studied from various 
standpoints; with relation to the succes¬ 
sion of forms which it exhibits from its 
first stage to its adult form ( develop¬ 
mental or embryotical anatomy ), with 
reference to the general properties and 
structure of the tissues or textures ( gen¬ 
eral anatomy, histology) , with reference 
to the changes in structure of organs or 
parts produced by disease and congenital 
malformations ( morbid or pathological 
anatomy ) ; with reference to the func¬ 
tion, use, or purpose performed by the 
organs or parts ( teleological or physiolog¬ 
ical anatomy). According to the parts 
o t the body described, the different divi¬ 
sions of human anatomy receive different 
names; as, osteology, the description of 
the bones ; myology , of the muscles; des- 
mology, of the ligaments and sinews: 
splanchnology, of the viscera or internal 
organs, in which are reckoned the lungs, 
stomach, and intestines, the liver, spleen, 
kidneys, bladder, pancreas, etc. Angiology 
describes the vessels through which the 



Anatomy 


Anaximines 


liquids in the body are conducted, includ- and students, by permitting, under cer- 
ing the blood-vessels, which are divided tain regulations, the dissection of the 
into arteries and veins, and the lymphatic bodies of persons who die friendless in 
vessels, some of which absorb matters almshouses, hospitals, etc. Similar laws 
from the bowels, while others are dis- have since been enacted in many of the 
tributed through the whole body, collect- States of this country. Relatives may 
ing juices from the tissues and carrying effectually object to the anatomical ex- 
them back into the blood. Neurology de- amination of a body, even though the de¬ 
scribes the system of the nerves and of the ceased had expressed a desire for it. 
brain; dermatology treats of the skin.— AnaxaffOraS (an-aks-ag'o-ras), an an- 
Among anatomical labors are particularly ® cient Greek philosopher 

to be mentioned the making and preserv- of the Ionic school, born at Clazomenae, 
ing of anatomical preparations. Prepara- in Ionia, probably about 500 B.c. When 
tions of this sort can be preserved (1) by only about twenty years of age he settled 
drying them and clearing away all mus- at Athens, and soon gained a high reputa- 
cular adhesions, etc., as is done with tion, and gathered round him a circle of 
skeletons, the bones of which are some- renowned pupils, including Pericles. Eu- 
times washed with acids to give firm- ripides, Socrates, etc. At the age of fifty 
ness and whiteness; (2) by putting them he was publicly charged with impiety and 
into liquids as alcohol, spirits of turpen- condemned to death, but the sentence was 
tine, etc., as is done with the intestines commuted to perpetual banishment. He 
and other soft parts of the body; (3) by thereupon went to Lampsacus, where he 
injection, which is used with vessels, the died about 428. Anaxagoras belonged to 
course and distribution of which are to the atomic school of Ionic philosophers, 
be made sensible and the shape of which He held that there was an infinite num- 
is to be retained ; (4) by tanning and cov- ber of different kinds of elementary atoms, 
ering with a suitable varnish, as the and that these, in themselves motionless 
muscles. and originally existing in a state of 

Among the ancient writers or authori- chaos, were put in motion by an eternal, 
ties on human anatomy may be men- immaterial, spiritual, elementary being, 
tioned Hippocrates the younger (460- Nous (Intelligence), from which motion 
377 b.c. ), Aristotle (384-322 b.c.), the world was produced. The stars were, 

Herophilus and Erasistratus of Alexan- according to him, of earthy materials; the 
dria (fl. about 300 b.c.), Celsus (53 sun a glowing mass, about as large as the 
b.c-37 a.d.), and Galen of Pergamus Peloponnesus: the earth was flat; the 
(140-200), the most celebrated of all the moon a dark, inhabitable body, receiving 
ancient authorities on the science. From its light from the sun; the comets wander- 
his time till the revival of learning in ing stars. 

Europe in the fourteenth century anatomy A no Yimcmrlpr (an-aks-i-man'der), an 
was checked in its progress. In 1315 ancient Greek (Ionic) 

Mondino, professor at Bologna, first philosopher, was born at Miletus in 611 
publicly performed dissection, and pub- b.c., and died 547. The fundamental 
lished a System of Anatomy . which was a principle of his philosophy is that the 
text-book in the schools of Italy for about source of all things is an undefined sub- 
200 years. In the sixteenth century stance infinite in quantity. The firma- 
Fallopio of Padua, Eustachi of Venice, ment is composed of heat and cold, the 
Vesalius of Brussels, Varoli of Bologna, stars of air and fire. The sun occupies 
and many others, enriched anatomy with the highest place in the heavens, has a 
new discoveries. In the seventeenth cen- circumference twenty-eight times larger 
tury Harvey discovered the circulation of than the earth, and resembles a cylinder, 
the blood, Asellius discovered the manner from which streams of fire issue. The 
in which the nutritious part of the food moon is likewise a cylinder, nineteen 
is conveyed into the circulation, while the times larger than the earth. The earth 
lymphatic system was detected and de- has the shape of a cylinder, and is placed 
scribed by the Dane T. Bartoline. Among in the midst of the universe, where it 
the renowned anatomists of later times remains suspended. Anaximander oc- 
we can only mention Malpighi, Boer- cupied himself a great deal with mathe- 
haave, William and John Hunter, the matics and geography. To him is cred- 
younger Meckel, Bichat, Rosenmiiller, ited the invention of geographical maps 
Quain, Sir A. Cooper, Sir C. Bell, Carus, and the first application of the gnomon or 
Joh. Muller, Hackel, Gegenbaur, Owen, style fixed on a horizontal plane to de- 
Huxley, Gray and Leidy. For the pur- termine the solstices and equinoxes, 
pose of aiding anatomical study, a statute Ana virmrip* (an-aks-im'e-nez), of 
was passed in England in 1832 which Miletus, an ancient 

made provision for ihe wants of surgeons, Greek (Ionic) philosopher, according to 




Anbury 


Anchor 


whom air was the first principle of all 
things. Finite things were formed from 
the infinite air by compression and rare¬ 
faction produced by eternally existent mo¬ 
tion ; and heat and cold resulted from 
varying degrees of density of the primal 
element. He flourished about 550 b.c. 
Anburv ( an 'ke-ri), called also Club- 
« root and Fingers and Toes, 
a disease in turnips, in which knobs or 
excrescences are formed on the root, 
which is then useless for feeding purposes. 
By some authorities it is said that the 
disease is caused by various species of in¬ 
sects depositing their eggs in the body of 
the root, while others believe that the in¬ 
sects are attracted by the effluvia of the 
diseased plant. 

AtipppIiq (an-kach'), a dep, of Peru, 
nm,cu*iia between the Andes and the 

Pacific; area, 16,160 sq. miles; pop. about 
500,000. 

Ancestor Worship, *“?’ a ° n ! 

cient of religious systems, continues to 
be the chief element in the religious ideas 
of perhaps the larger half of mankind. 
It extends throughout China, where 
it is the dominant force of faith; it con¬ 
stitutes the Shintoism of Japan; it 
exists in Hindustan and in other sections 
of Asia, and among the native inhabit¬ 
ants of America, Africa and Polynesia. 
In it the reverence for immediate an¬ 
cestors leads back through a series of 

more remote and partly divine ancestors 
to the earliest ancestor, the creator of 
man—the Old-old-one, or Akulumkulu, of 
the Zulus, who conquer in battle with 
the aid of their ancestral spirits. This 
system of religion is a subdivision of 

Animism, the spirits of the dead being 
assimilated to the spirits supposed to 

reside in the objects of nature, and tend¬ 
ing to replace the latter. Ancestor wor¬ 
ship has been the home and hearth relig¬ 
ion of many neoples who had a more or¬ 
nate public worship, such as the ancient 
Greeks and Romans. The belief in a 
future life of the spirit assumes the 

existence of another world and the im¬ 
mortality of mankind, a belief which is 
lacking in some other forms of worship. 

Annin cpc (an-ki'sez), the father of 
illlLIIlbCb tbe rp ro j an bero ^imas, 

who carried him off on his shoulders at 
the burning of Troy and made him the 
companion of his voyage to Italy. He 
died during the voyage at Drepanum, in 
Sicily. 

Anrlritherium ( an g'ki-th£ r i" um )> an 

xincill lllcl 1 U.II1 an j ma i that lived 

in North America and Europe in the 
Upper Eocene period. It was an ancestor 
of the horse, having three toes, instead of 


one, as in the horse. It was about the 
size of a small pony. 

Anchor ( an g' k( ? r )> an implement for 
holding a ship or other vessel 
at rest in the water. In ancient times 
large stones or crooked pieces of wood 



Trotman’s Anchor. 


heavily weighted with metal were used 
for this purpose. The anchor now used 
is of iron, formed with a strong shank, 
at one extremity of which is the crown, 
from which branch out two arms , ter¬ 
minating in broad palms or flukes, the 
sharp extremity of which is the peak or 
bill; at the other end of the shank is the 
stock (fixed at right angles to the plane 
of the arms), behind which is the ring, 
to which a cable can be attached. The 
principal use of the stock is to cause 
the arms to fall so as one of the flukes 
shall enter the ground. The anchors of 
the largest size carried by men-of-war 
are the best and small bowers, the sheet, 
and the spare, to which are added the 
stream and the hedge, which are used for 
anchoring in a stream or other sheltered 
place and for warping the vessel from 
one place to another. Many improve¬ 
ments and novelties in the shape and 
construction of anchors have been intro¬ 
duced within recent times. The principal 
names connected with these alterations 
are those of Lieut. Rodgers, who intro¬ 
duced the hollow-shanlced anchor with 
the view of increasing the strength with¬ 
out adding to the weight; Mr. Porter, 
who made the arms and flukes movable by 
pivoting them to the stock instead of 
fixing them immovably, causing the an¬ 
chor to take a readier and firmer hold, 
and avoiding the chance of the cable be- 



Martin’s Anchor. 


coming foul; Mr. Trotman, who has 
further improved on Porter’s invention; 
and M. Martin, whose anchor is of very 
peculiar form, and is constructed so as to 
be self-canting, the arms revolving through 
an angle of 30° either way, and the sharp 







Anchor-ice 


Ancona 


points of the flukes being always ready 
to enter the ground. 

Anrhnr-lPP or ground-ice, a layer of 

iincnor ice, ice which forms ou the 

beds of rivers or shallow brackish seas. 
It does not form until the temperature 
•is below 10° F. and does not adhere 
strongly until zero is reached. It does 
not appear in perfectly still water and is 
most abundant where the water is most 
disturbed. When rising it frequently 
brings up the stones or boulders to which 
it is attached. 

Anchorites or an;. 

chorets (Gr. anachore- 
tai, persons who have withdrawn them¬ 
selves from the world), in the early 
church a class of religious persons who 
generally passed their lives in cells, from 
which they never removed. Their habita¬ 
tions were, in many instances, entirely 
separated from the abodes of other men, 
sometimes in the depth of wildernesses in 
pits or caverns; at other times several of 
these individuals fixed their habitations in 
the vicinity of each other, but they al¬ 
ways lived personally separate. The con¬ 
tinual prevalence of bloody wars, civil 
commotions, and persecutions at the be¬ 
ginning of the Christian era must have 
made retirement and religious meditation 
agreeable to men of quiet and contempla¬ 
tive minds. This spirit, however, as 
might have been expected, soon led to 
fanatical excesses; many anchorites went 
without proper clothing, wore heavy 
chains, and we find at the close of the 
fourth century Simeon Stylites passing 
thirty years on the top of a column 
without ever descending from it, and 
finally dying there. In Egypt and Syria, 
where Christianity became blended with 
the Grecian philosophy and strongly 
tinged with the peculiar notions of the 
East, the anchorets were most numerous; 
in Europe there were comparatively few, 
and on the development and establishment 
of the monastic system they completely 
disappeared. 

Anplinw (an-cho'vi), a small fish of 
^ the Herring family, all the 
species, with exception of the common an- 



Anchovy (Engraulis vittatus ). 

chovy (Engraulis encrasicholus) and E. 
meletta (both Mediterranean species), 


inhabitants of the tropical seas of India 
and America. The common anchovy, so 
esteemed for its rich and peculiar flavor, 
is not much larger than the middle finger. 
It is caught in vast numbers in the Medi¬ 
terranean, and frequently on the coasts 
of France, Holland, and the south of 
England, and pickled for exportation. 
A favorite sauce is made by pounding the 
pickled fish in water, simmering for a 
short time, adding a little cayenne pepper, 
and straining the whole through a hair- 
sieve. 

Ancho'vv-uear (^ na ® cauliflora), a 
vy pecti tree of the natural 

order Myrtaceae, a native of Jamaica, 
growing to the height of 50 feet, with 
large leaves and large white flowers, and 
bearing a fruit somewhat bigger than a 
hen’s egg, which is pickled and eaten like 
the mango, and strongly resembles it in 
taste. 


Anchusa 


See Al- 


Anchylosis See An ~ 

Ann'llnn (ap-se-yon), Jean Pierre 
-n.iiv,iiiun Fr £ D £ RIC> an author and 

statesman of French extraction, born at 
Berlin in 1767 (w r here his father was 


pastor of the French reformed church) ; 
died there in 1837. He became professor 
of history in the military academy at 
Berlin, and in 1806 he was charged with 
the education of the crown-prince. He 
successively occupied several important 
offices of state, being at last appointed 
minister of foreign affairs. He wrote on 
philosophy, history, and politics, partly 
in French, partly in German. 


Anckarstrom. See Ankarstrom. 


Ancona (an-ko'na), a seaport of Italy, 
capital of the province of the 
same name, on the Adriatic, 130 miles 
N. e. of Borne, with harbor works begun 
by Trajan, who built the ancient mole or 
quay. A triumphal arch of white marble, 
erected in honor of Trajan, stands on the 
mole. The harbor, once the finest on the 


coast, has been recently improved; An¬ 
cona is now a station of the Italian fleet, 
and the commerce is increasing. The 
town is indifferently built, but has some 
remarkable edifices; among others, the 
cathedral and the Arch of Trajan. 
Thei^ is also a colossal statue of Count 
Cavour. Ancona is said to have been 
founded about four centuries b.c., by 
Syracusean refugees. It fell into the 
hands of the Romans in the first half of 
the third century b.c., and became a Ro¬ 
man colony. Pop. 56,835. The province 
has an area of 740 square miles, and a 
population of 302,460. 



Ancre 


Andersen 


Ancre D ’’ (d°pkr), Concino Concini, 
9 Marshal and Marquis, was 
a native of Florence, and on the marriage 
of Marie de Mgdieis to Henri IV in 
1600 came in her suite to France, where 
he obtained rapid promotion, more es¬ 
pecially after the assassination of the 
king (1610). He became successively 
Governor of Normandy, Marshal of 
France, and last of all, prime-minister. 
Being thoroughly detested by all classes, 
at last a conspiracy was formed against 
him, and he was shot dead on the bridge 
of the Louvre in 1617. 

AllCUS Marcius (mar'she-us), ac¬ 
cording to the tradi¬ 
tionary history of Rome, the fourth king 
of that city, who succeeded Tullus Hos- 
tilius, 638, and died 614 b.c. He was the 
son of Numa’s daughter, and sought to 
imitate his grandfather by reviving the 
neglected observances of religion. He is 
said to have built the wooden bridge 
across the. Tiber known as the Sublician, 
constructed the harbor of Ostia, and 
built the first Roman prison. 

Ancy'ra. See Angora. 

Andalusia (an : da-ffi'she-a; Sp Anda- 

lucia), a large and fertile 
district in the south of Spain, bounded 
N. by Estramadura and New Castile, e. 
by Murica, s. by the Mediterranean Sea, 
and w. by Portugal and the Atlantic; 
area, about 22,577 sq. miles, including the 
modern provinces of Seville, Huelva, 
Cadiz, Jaen, Cordova, Granada, Almeria, 
and Malaga. It is traversed throughout 
its whole extent by ranges of mountains, 
the loftiest being the Sierra Nevada, 
many summits of which are covered with 
perpetual snow (Mulahacen is 11,678 
feet). Minerals abound, and several 
mines have been opened by English com¬ 
panies, especially in the province of 
Huelva, where the Tharsis and Rio Tinto 
copper-mines are situated. The principal 
river is the Guadalquivir. The vine, 
myrtle, olive, palm, banana, carob, etc., 
grow abundantly in the valley of the 
Guadalquivir. Wheat, maize, barley, and 
many varieties of fruit grow almost 
spontaneously; besides which, honey, silk, 
and cochineal form important articles of 
culture. The horses and mules are the 
best in the peninsula; the bulls are 
sought for bull-fighting over all Spain; 
sheep are reared in vast numbers. Agri¬ 
culture is in a backward state, and the 
manufactures are by no means extensive. 
The Andalusians are descended in part 
from the Moors, of whom they still pre¬ 
serve decided characteristics. Pop. 3,450,- 
210 . 

11—1 


Andaman (an-da-man') Islands, a 

Andaman chain of islands on the east 

side of the Bay of Bengal, the principal 
being the North, Middle, South, and 
Little Andamans. Middle Andaman is 
about 60 miles long, and 15 or 16 miles 
broad; North and South Andaman are 
each about 50 miles long. The inhabi¬ 
tants are about 14,500 in number, and 
mostly in a very savage state, living al¬ 
most naked in the rudest habitations. 
They are small (generally much less 
than 5 feet, resembling the Negritos of 
the Philippines), well formed, and active, 
skillful archers and canoeists, and excel¬ 
lent swimmers and divers. These islands 
have been used since 1858 as a penal set¬ 
tlement by the Indian government, the 
settlement being at Port Blair, on South 
Andaman. Here rice, coffee, pineapples, 
nutmegs, etc., are grown, while the jungle 
has been cleared off the neighboring hills. 
The natives in the vicinity of the settle¬ 
ment have become to some extent civil¬ 
ized. The climate is moist, but the set¬ 
tlement is now healthy. 

Andante (an-dan'ta; It. ‘at a walk- 

Anaante ing pace>)> in music> de _ 

notes a movement somewhat slow, grace¬ 
ful, distinct, and soothing. The word is 
also applied substantively to that part of 
a sonata or symphony having a movement 
of this character. 

Andelvs Les 0 az Snd-lez, op-dle), 
J 9 two towns in France called 
respectively Grand and Petit Andely, 
distant half a mile from each other, in 
the department of Eure, on the right 
bank of the Seine, 19 miles s.e. of Rouen. 
Grand Andely dates from the sixth 
century; its church is one of the finest in 
the department. Petit Andely owes its 
origin to Richard Cceur de Lion, who, in 
1195, built here the Chateau Gaillard, 
iu its time one of the strongest fortresses 
in France, but now wholly a ruin. Pop. 
4,539. 

Andenne (oji-den'). a town* of Bel- 
zaiiu ic gium, province of Namur, 
on the right bank of the Meuse and 10 
miles east of Namur; manufactures delft- 
ware, porcelain, tobacco-pipes, paper, etc. 
Pop. 7,111. 

AndernarTi (an'der-nac/i), a town of 
AiiueiiidLii Rhenigh Prussia> on the 

left bank of the Rhine, 10 miles n. w. of 
Coblentz, partly surrounded with walls. 
Pop. 7,889. 

Andersen (an'der-sen), Hans Chris¬ 
tian, a Danish novelist, 
poet, and writer of fairy tales, was born 
of poor parents at Odense, 2d April, 1805. 
He learned to read and write in a charity 
school, from which he was taken when 



Anderson 


Anderson 


only nine years old, and was put to work 
in a manufactory in order that his earn¬ 
ings might assist his widowed mother. 
In his leisure time he eagerly read na¬ 
tional ballads, poetry, and plays, and 
wrote several tragedies full enough of 
sound and fury. In 1810 he went to 
Copenhagen, but failed in getting any of 
his plays accepted, and in securing an 
appointment at the theater, having to 
content himself for some time with un¬ 
steady employment as a joiner. His 
abilities at last brought him under the 
notice of Councilor Collin, a man of 
considerable influence, who procured for 
him free entrance into a government 
school at Slagelse. From this school he 
was transferred to the university, and 
soon became favorably known by his 
poetic works. Through the influence of 
Oehlenschlager and others he received 
a royal grant to enable him to travel, and 
in 1833 he visited Italy, his impressions 
of which he published in The Impro- 
risatore (1835), a work which rendered 
his fame European. The scene of his 
following novel, O. T., was laid in Den¬ 
mark, and in Only a Fiddler he described 
his own early struggles. In 1835 ap¬ 
peared the first volume of his Fairy 
Tales, of which successive volumes con¬ 
tinued to be published year by year at 
Christmas, and which have been the most 
popular and widespread of his works. 
Among his other works are Picture-hooks 
without Pictures, A Poets Bazaar —the 
result of a voyage in 1840 to the East— 
and a number of dramas. In 1845 he 
received an annuity from the government. 
He visited England in 1848, and acquired 
such a command of the language that his 
next work, The Two Baronesses, was 
written in English. In 1853 he published 
an autobiography, under the title My 
Life's Romance, an English translation 
of which, published in 1871, contained 
additional chapters by the author, bring¬ 
ing the narrative to 1867. Among his 
later works we may mention, To Be or 
Not To Be (1857) ; Tales from Jutland 
(1859) ; The Ice Maiden (1863). He 
died 4th August, 1875, having had the 
pleasure of seeing many of his works 
translated into most of the European 
languages. 


Anderson ( ,? n '; i j r ; son)jAMES ’ . * 

Scottish writer on polit¬ 
ical and rural economy, born in 1739, 
died in 1808. In 1790 he started the 
Bee, which ran to eighteen vols., and 
contains many useful papers on agri¬ 
cultural, economical and other topics. 
Among his other publications, Recre¬ 
ations in Agriculture, Natural History, 
etc., contains anticipations of theories 


afterwards propounded by Malthus and 
Ricardo. 

A nrl Arcnn John, professor of natural 
AllUCIbUII, philosophy in the Univer¬ 
sity of Glasgow; born 1726, died 1796. 
By his will he directed that the whole 
of his effects should be devoted to the 
establishment of an educational institu¬ 
tion in Glasgow, to be denominated 
Anderson's University, for the use of the 
unacademical classes. According to the 
design of the founder, there were to be 
four colleges—for arts, medicine, law, and 
theology—besides an initiatory school. As 
the funds, however, were totally inade¬ 
quate to the plan, it was at first com¬ 
menced with only a single course of 
lectures on natural philosophy and chem¬ 
istry. The institution gradually enlarged 
its sphere of instruction, coming nearer 
and nearer to the original design of its 
founder, the medical school in particular 
possessing a high reputation. More re¬ 
cently it has been incorporated with other 
institutions to form the Glasgow and 
West of Scotland Technical College, the 
medical school, however, retaining a dis¬ 
tinct position. 

Anderson, Rasmus Bjorn, | U o h r °n 

at Albion, Wisconsin, in 1846, of Nor¬ 
wegian parentage, was professor of Scan¬ 
dinavian languages in the University of 
Wisconsin. 1875-84. Author of Amer¬ 
ica not Discovered by Columbus; Norse 
Mythology; Viking Tales of the North; 
The Younger Edda, etc. 

Anderson, Robert, s D °™ et ’ L £“f” 

ville, Kentucky, in 1805; graduated at 
West Point in 1825; was a captain in 
the Mexican War; major of artillery in 
1857; in 1860 took command of the forts 
in Charleston harbor. He defended Fort 
Sumter against the Confederate attack, 
in 1861, the opening event of the civil 
war, when it became untenable, with¬ 
drawing on April 13. He was promoted 
brigadier-general, but from ill health 
or other cause took no further part in 
the war. On April 13, 1865, he raised 
again over Fort Sumter the flag he 
had lowered four years before. Died in 
1871. 

Anderson, capital of Madison county, 

1 Indiana, 35 miles N. E. of 
Indianapolis; a manufacturing city, hav¬ 
ing a hydraulic canal with 44 feet fall. 
Its products include iron, steel, brass, 
wire, paper, glass, etc. Pop. 22,476. 

And priori capital of Anderson Co., 
AliUeibUIi * South CaroHna, 126 miles 
w. n. w. of Columbia; has cotton and 
fertilizer industries, oil and yarn mills 
and a mattress factory. Pop. *9,654. 



Andersson 


Andiron 


Andersson (an-ders'son), Carl Jan, 
an African traveler, born 
in Sweden in 1827; died in the land of 
the Ovampos, in Western Africa, in July, 
1867. He published Lake Ngami, or Dis¬ 
coveries in South Africa (London, 2 vols., 
1856), and The Okavango River. 

Andes (an'dez), or, as they are called 
in Spanish South America, 
Cordilleras (ridges) de los andes, or 
simply Cordilleras, a range of moun¬ 
tains stretching along the whole of the 
west coast of South America, from Cape 
Horn to the Isthmus of Panama and the 
Caribbean Sea. In absolute length 
(4500 miles) no single chain of moun- 
tains. approaches the Andes, and only a 
certain number of the higher peaks of the 
Himalayan chain rise higher above the 
sea level; which peak is the highest of all 
is not yet settled. Several main sections 
of this huge chain are distinguishable. 
The Southern Andes present a lofty main 
chain, with a minor chain running 
parallel to it on the east, reaching from 
Tierra del Fuego and the Straits of 
Magellan northward to about lat. 28° s.. 
and rising in Aconcagua to a height of 
22,860 feet. North of this is the double 
chain of the Central Andes, inclosing the 
wide and lofty plateaus of Bolivia and 
Peru, which lie at an elevation of more 
than 12,000 feet above the sea. The 
mountain system is here at its broadest, 
being about 500 miles across. Here are 
also several very lofty peaks, as Illampu 
or Sorata (21,484 feet), Sahama (21,- 
054), Illimani (21,024). Further north 
the outer and inner ranges draw closer 
together, and in Ecuador there is but a 
single system of elevated masses, general¬ 
ly described as forming two parallel 
chains. In this section are crowded to¬ 
gether a number of lofty peaks, most of 
them volcanoes, either extinct or active. 
Of the latter class are Pichincha (15,918 
feet), with a crater 2500 feet deep; 
Tunguragua (16,685 feet) ; Sangay (17,- 
460 feet) ; and Cotopaxi (19,550 feet). 
The loftiest summit here appears to be 
Chimborazo (20,581 feet) ; others are 
Antisana (19,260 feet) and Cayambe 
(19,200 feet). Northward of this section 
the Andes break into three distinct ranges, 
the eastmost running northeastward into 
Venezuela, the westmost running north¬ 
westward to the Isthmus of Panama. In 
the central range is the volcano of Tolima 
(17,660 feet). The western slope of the 
Andes is generally exceedingly steep, the 
eastern much less so, the mountains sink¬ 
ing gradually to the plains. The whole 
range gives evidence of volcanic action, 
but it consists almost entirely of sedi¬ 
mentary rocks. Thus mountains may be 


found rising to the height of over 20,000 
feet, and fossiliferous to their summits 
(as Illimani and Sorata or Illampu). 
There are about thirty volcanoes in a 

state of activity. The loftiest of these 
burning mountains seems to be Gual- 
teiiri, in Peru, (21,960 feet). The 

heights of the others vary from 13,000 to 
20,000 feet. All the districts of the Andes 
system have suffered severely from earth¬ 
quakes, towns having been either destroy¬ 
ed or greatly injured by these visitations. 
Peaks crowned with perpetual snow are 
seen all along the range, and glaciers are 
also met with, more especially from 

Aconcagua southwards. The passes are 

generally at a great height, the most 
important being from 10,000 to 15.000 
feet. Railways have been constructed to 
cross the chain at a similar elevation. 
The Andes are extremely rich in the 
precious metals, gold, silver, copper, plati¬ 
num, mercury, and tin all being wrought: 
lead and iron are also found. The llama 
and its congeners—the guanaco, vicuna, 
and alpaca—are characteristic of the 
Andes. Among birds, the condor is the 
most remarkable. The vegetation neces¬ 
sarily varies much according to elevation, 
latitude, rainfall, etc., but generally is 
rich and varied. Except in the south and 
north little rain falls on the western 
side of the range, and in the center 
there is a considerable desert area. 
On the east side the rainfall is heavy 
in the equatorial regions, but in the south 
is very scanty or altogether deficient. 
From the Andes rise two of the largest 
water systems of the world—the Amazon 
and its affluents, and the La Plata and its 
affluents. Besides which, in the north, 
from its slopes flow the Magdalena to the 
Caribbean Sea, and some tributaries to 
the Orinoco. The mountain chain press¬ 
ing so close upon the Pacific Ocean, no 
streams of importance flow from its 
western slopes. The number of lakes is 
not great; the largest and most important 
is that of Titicaca on the Bolivian 
plateau. In the Andes are towns at a 
greater elevation than anywhere else in 
the world, the highest being the silver 
mining town of Cerro de Pasco (14,270 
feet), the next being Potosi. 

All (lira (an-dl'ra), a genus of legumin- 
xi.ii.uj.ia oug American trees, with 

fleshy, plum-like fruits. The wood is 
well fitted for building. The bark of A. 
inermis, or cabbage-tree, is narcotic, and 
is used as an anthelmintic under the 
name of worm-bark or cabbage bark. The 
powered bark of A. araroba is used as a 
remedy in certain skin diseases, as herpes. 

AlldirOIl ( an d'i-ern), a horizontal iron 
xxnu v k ar ra j se( j on s hort legs, with 



Andkhoo 


Andrews 


an upright standard at one end, used to 
support pieces of wood when burning in 
an open hearth, one andiron being placed 
on each side of the hearth. 
a y, A aa or Andkhoui (and-^o', and- 

AndKnOO, ho'i), a town of Afghan¬ 
istan, about 200 miles s. of Bokhara, on 
the commercial route to Herat. Pop. 
estimated at 15,000. 

Anrlnpirlpsi (an-dos'i-dez), an Athenian 
2111 UUOIUC& orator, born in 467 b.c., 
died about 393 B.C. He took an active 
part in public affairs, and was four times 
exiled ; the first time along with Alcibi- 
ades, for profaning the Eleusinian mys¬ 
teries. Several of his orations are extant. 

Anrlnrrp or Andorra (an-dor', an- 
xxiiLlui ICj d or ' ra ) ? a sma n nominally 

independent state in the Pyrenees, south 
of the French department of Ariege, with 
an area of about 230 square miles. It has 
been a separate state for six hundred 
years; is governed by its own civil and 
criminal codes, and has its own courts of 
justice, the laws being administered by 
two judges, one of whom is chosen by 
France, the other by the Bishop of Urgel, 
in Spain. The little state pays annually 
920 francs (about $184) to France, and 
460 francs to the Bishop of Urgel. The 
chief industry is the rearing of sheep and 
cattle. The commerce is largely in im¬ 
porting contraband goods into Spain. 
The inhabitants, who speak the Catalan 
dialect of Spanish, are simple in their 
manners, their wealth consisting mainly 
of cattle and sheep. The village of Old 
Andorre is the capital. Pop. about 6,000. 
Anrlmrpv (an'do-ver). a town in Eng- 

Anaover land> in ; Hants> 12 mi i es 

n. by w. of Winchester, with a fine 
church, and a trade in corn, malt, etc. 
Interesting Roman remains found in the 
vicinity. Pop. 7596. 

An'rlnvpr a town in Massachusetts, 

IX1L UUVC1, 25 mileg N N w of Boston> 

chiefly notable for its literary institu¬ 
tions—Phillip’s Academy, founded in 
1778; the Andover Theological Seminary, 
founded in 1807, and a female academy 
founded in 1829. Pop. 7301. 

Andrassy < T a “; d I r i' sh5) -„ Cou . NT 

J Julius, a Hungarian 
statesman, born in 1823; took part in the 
revolution of 1848, was condemned to 
death, but escaped and went into exile; 
appointed premier when self-government 
was restored to Hungary in 1867; became 
imperial minister for foreign affairs in 
1871, retiring from public life in 1879. 
Died in 1890. 

Andre' (an'dra), Major John, 
adjutant-general in the Brit¬ 
ish army during the American Revolu¬ 
tionary War. Employed to negotiate the 


defection of the American general Arnold, 
and the delivery of the works at West 
Point, he was apprehended in disguise, 
September 23, 1780, within the American 
lines, declared a spy from the enemy, 
and hanged Oct. 2, 1780. His remains 
were brought to England in 1821 and in¬ 
terred in Westminster Abbey, where a mon¬ 
ument has been erected to his memery. 
AndrpfP (an'dre-e), Johann Valen¬ 
tin, a German author, born 
in 1586, died in 1654. He was the author 
of numerous tracts, several of them of an 
amusing and satirical character; and was 
long believed to be the founder of the 
celebrated Rosicrucian order, an opinion 
that received a certain support from some 
of his works, but in all probability the 
real intention of the writer w r as to 
ridicule a prevalent folly of the age. 

AndrpaQhprP* (an-dra'fis-berg), St., a 

2inaied,bueig mining town of thc 

Harz Mountains, in Prussia, 57 miles s. s. 
e. of Hanover. Pop. 3,846. 

An'rlrpp S. A., Swedish engineer and 
U1CC » aeronaut, born about 1855. 
He was examiner-in-chief at the patent 
office, practiced aeronautics, and in 1896 
projected a balloon voyage to the North 
Pole. He started in 1897. with two com¬ 
panions, from Danes Island, east of 
Spitzbergen, and was never heard of 
afterwards. 

Anrlrpw (an'dru), St., brother of St. 

Peter, and the first disciple 
whom Christ chose. He is said to have 
preached in Scythia, in Thrace and Asia 
Minor, and in Achaia (Greece), and ac¬ 
cording to tradition he was crucified at 
Patrae, now Patras, in Achaia, on a cross 
of the form X. Hence such a cross is 
now known as a St. Andrew’s cross. 
The Russians revere him as the apostle 
who brought the gospel to them; the 
Scots, as the patron saint of their 
country. The day dedicated to him is the 
30th of November. The Russian order of 
St. Andrew, the highest of the empire, 
was instituted by Peter the Great in 1698. 
For the Scottish Knights of St. Andrew 
or the Thistle, see Thistle. 

An'drews, Eli ' sha benjamin edu- 

J cator, born at Hilldale, 
New Hampshire, in 1844. He served in 
the Civil war, losing an eye in battle. 
Graduating at Brown University in 1870 
and in theology in 1874, he became pro¬ 
fessor of history and political economy at 
Brown in 1882, of political economy and 
finance at Cornell in 1888, and president 
of Brown in 1889. He resigned in 1898 
and became superintendent of the public 
schools of Chicago. Among his several 
works are History of the Last Quarter 
Century in the United States. 



Andrews 


Andropogon 


A n drpws (an'drus), Lancelot, an em- 
° inent and learned bishop of 
the English Church, born in London in 
1555, died at Winchester 1626; was high 
in favor both with Queen Elizabeth and 
James I. In 1605 he became Bishop of 
Chichester, in 1609 was translated to Ely, 
and appointed one of the king’s privy- 
councilors ; and in 1618 he was trans¬ 
lated to Winchester. He was one of those 
engaged in preparing the authorized ver¬ 
sion of the Scriptures. He left sermons, 
lectures, and other writings. 

ArtMrPwe St., an ancient city and 
nu uicwb, geat Qf a uniyersity in 

Fifeshire, Scotland, 31 miles n. e. from 
Edinburgh; was erected into a royal 
burgh by David I in 1140, and after 
having been an episcopal, became an 
archiepiscopal see in 1472, and was for 
long the ecclesiastical capital of Scot¬ 
land. The cathedral, now in ruins, was 
begun about 1160, and took 157 years to 
finish. The old castle, founded about 
1200, and rebuilt in the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury, is also an almost shapeless ruin. In 
it James III was born and Cardinal 
Beaton assassinated, and in front of it 
George Wishart was burned. There are 
several other interesting ruins. The trade 
and manufactures are of no importance, 
but the town is in favor as a watering- 
place. Golfing is much played here.—The 
University of St. Andrews, the oldest 
of the Scotch universities, founded in 
1411, consists of three colleges, St. Sal¬ 
vator. St. Leonard’s, and St. Mary’s. 
Originally all three had teachers both in 
arts and theology; but in 1579 the 
colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard 
were confined to the teaching of arts and 
medicine, and that of St. Mary to 
theology. In 1747 the two former colleges 
were united by act of Parliament. The 
average number of students is about 200. 
In connection with the university is a 
library containing about 100,000 printed 
volumes and numerous MSS. The uni¬ 
versity unites with that of Edinburgh 
in sending a member to Parliament. 
Madras College or Academy, founded 
by Dr. Bell, of Madras, the principal 
secondary school of the place, provides 
accommodation for upwards of 1,500 
scholars. Pop. 7,621. 

Anri Tin (an'dra-a), a town of South 
Italy, province of Bari, with 
a fine cathedral, founded in 1046; the 
church of Sant’ Agostino, with a beauti¬ 
ful pointed Gothic portal; a college; 
manufactures of majolica, and a good 
trade. Pop. 49,569. 

AndrfPflilim (an-dre'si-um), in bot- 
xinuiujLiuiii any> the male system 

of a flower; the aggregate of the stamens. 


Andromache < a r ° 8 >- 

Greek mythology, wife 
of Hector, one of the most attractive 
female characters of Homer’s Iliad. The 
passage describing her parting with Hec¬ 
tor when he was setting out to his last 
battle is well known and much admired. 
Euripides and Racine have made her the 
chief character of tragedies. 
Andromeda (an-drom'e-da), in Greek 

mythology, daughter of 
the Ethiopian king Cepheus and of 
Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia having boasted 
that her daughter surpassed the Nereids, 
if not Hera (Juno) herself, in beauty, the 
offended goddesses prevailed on their 
father, Poseidon (Neptune), to afflict the 
country with a horrid seamonster, which 
threatened universal destruction. To ap¬ 
pease the offended god, Andromeda was 
chained to a rock, but was rescued by 
Perseus; and after death was changed 
into a constellation. 

Androm'eda, t f 

One species, A. polifolia, wild rosemary, 
a beautiful evergreen shrub, grows by the 
side of ponds and in swamps in the 
Northern States. 

Andronicus ( “' < l ro ' n ’? us ]’ 1 , r ‘'’ e 

name ot tour em¬ 
perors of Constantinope.— Andronicus I, 
Comnenus, born 1110, killed by the people 
for his cruelty in 1185.— Andronicus II, 
Palseologus, born 1258, died 1332. His 
reign is celebrated for the invasion of the 
Turks.— Andronicus III, Palseologus the 
Younger, born 1296, died 1341.— Andro¬ 
nicus IV, Palseologus, reigned in the ab¬ 
sence of John IV. In 1373 he gave way 
to his brother Manuel, and died a monk. 

Hrtf\ vnn i 'nn a of Rhodes, a peripatetic 
iiliCirOIIl tub, philosopher who lived at 

Rome in the time of Cicero. He arranged 

Aristotle’s works in much the same form 

as they retain in present editions. 

AnrtrmnVnq LlvIUS > the most an- 
iinarom cub, cient of the Latin 

dramatic poets; flourished about 240 
b.c. ; by origin a Greek, and long a slave. 
A few fragments of his works have come 
down to us. f 

Androni'cus Cyrrhestes ( t ? r ) ‘ i e 

Greek architect about 100 B.C., who con¬ 
structed at Athens the Tower of the 
Winds, an octagonal building, still stand¬ 
ing. On the top was a Triton, which in¬ 
dicated the direction of the wind. Each 
of the sides had a sort of dial, and the 
building formerly contained a clepsydra 
or water-clock. 

AndrnrwiP’mi (an-dro-po'gon), a large 

iiiunupugun genug of grassegi main _ 

ly natives of warm countries. A. schce - 




Andros 


Anemometer 


nantlius is the sweet-scented lemon-grass 
of conservatories. Others also are fra¬ 
grant. 

AnHrns (an'dros; now Andro ), one of 
3 the islands of the Grecian 
Archipelago, the most northerly of the 
Cyclades; about 25 miles long and 6 or 7 
broad; area, 100 square miles. A con¬ 
siderable trade is done in silk, wine, 
olives, figs, oranges, and lemons. Andro 
or Castro, the capital, has a good port. 
Pop. 18,809. 

Andros Islands, Ugfc ° f 0 is ,t 

Bahamas, lying s. w. of New Providence, 
not far from the east entrance to the 
Gulf of Florida. The passages through 
them are dangerous. 


quivir, which is here crossed by a fine 

bridge; manufactures a peculiar kind of 

porous earthern water bottles and jugs 

(alcarazas) . Pop. 16,302. 

Anprrlntf* (an'ek-dot), originally some 
xincouuic particular relative t0 a sub _ 

ject not noticed in previous works on that 
subject; now any particular or detached 
incident or fact of an interesting nature; 
a single passage of private life. 
Ane^ada (an-a-ga'd&), a British 

Xiiiegauct West India island the 

most northern of the Virgin group, 10 
miles long by broad; contains numer¬ 
ous salt ponds, from which quantities of 
salt are obtained. 

Anelectric, a . not easil y 

7 electrified. 



Anelectrode, 

of a galvanic battery. 

Anemometer < an \ e - 

m o m e- 
ter; Gr. anemos , wind, 
metron, measure), an in¬ 
strument for measuring the 
force and velocity of the 
wind. This force is us¬ 
ually measured by the 
pressure of the wind upon 
a square plate attached to 
one. end of a spiral spring 
(with its axis horizontal), 
which yields more or less 
according to the force of 
the wind, and transmits its 
motion to a pencil which 
leaves a trace upon paper 
moved by clockwork. For 
indicating the velocity of 
the wind, the instrument 
which has yielded the best 
results consist of four hemi¬ 
spherical cups attached 
to the ends of equal hori¬ 
zontal arms, forming a 
horizontal cross which 
turns freely about a verti¬ 
cal axis which is strength¬ 
ened and supported. By 
means of an endless 
screw (worm) carried 
by the axis a train of 
wheel-work is set in mo¬ 
tion ; and the indication is 
given by a hand which 
moves round a dial; or in 
some instruments by sev¬ 
eral hands moving round 
different dials like those of 
a gas-meter. It is found 

• i • / j'. , that the center of each cup 

Anduiar fefo-Mr ), a town in moves with a velocity which is almost 
J Spain, in Andalusia, 50 exactly one-third of that of the wind 

miles e.n.e. of Cordova, on the Guadal- There are various other forms of instru- 


Home-made Anemometer. 





Anemone 


Angel 


ments, one of which is portable, and is 
especially intended for measuring the 
velocity of currents of air passing through 
mines, and the ventilating spaces of hospi¬ 
tals and other public buildings. The 
direction of the wind as indicated by a 
vane can also be made to leave a con¬ 
tinuous record by various contrivances; 
one of the most common being a pinion 
carried by the shaft of a vane, and driving 
rack which carries a pencil. 

An pm nri p (an-em'o-ne; Gr. anevnos , 
Anemone wind)? wind-flower, a 

genus of plants belonging to the Butter¬ 
cup family (Ranunculaceae), containing 
many species. The wood anemone, A. 
nemorosa, is a common and interesting 



Sea Anemone (Actinia mesembryanthemum ). 


little plant, and its white flowers are an 
ornament of many a woodland scene and 
mountain pasture in April and May. A. 
coronaria is a hardy plant, with large 
variegated flowers. A. Hortensis, star 
anemone, is one of the finest species. 

Anem'one, Sea. See Sea-anemone. 


Anemophilous “re 

fertilized by the wind conveying the pol¬ 
len. 

A n pm nsrOT)P < a-nem'o-skop), any con- 
iineillObtupc trivance indicating the 

direction of the wind; generally applied 
to a vane which turns a spindle descend¬ 
ing through the roof to a chamber, where, 
by means of a compass-card and index, 
the direction of the wind is shown. 
Anpmncic (a-ne-mo'sis), the condition 

Anemosis in timber also known as 

wind-shaken, indicated internally by a 
breaking of connection between the annual 
layers. It occurs in many species of trees 
and has been ascribed to the effect of 
violent winds, but is more probably due 
to frost or lightning. 


Anprm'rl (an'e-roid) Barometer. See 

.T1.I1CIU1U. fl n rnrn.pt pr 

Anethum | < | a a “g thu d “ | >’ a s enus of 

Anpnrin (an'u-rin), a poet and prince 
xineuim of the Cambrian Britons 

who flourished about 600 a.d., author of 
an epic poem, the Gododin, relating the 
defeat of the Britons of Strathclyde by 
the Saxons at the battle of Cattraeth. 

Aneurism, Aneurysm (an'u-rizm ; 

J Gr. aneu- 
rysma , a widening), the dilatation or ex¬ 
pansion of some part of an artery. Aneu¬ 
risms arise partly from the too violent 
motion of the blood, and partly from de¬ 
generative changes occurring in the coats 
of the artery, diminishing their elasticity. 
They are therefore more frequent in the 
great branches and particularly in the 
vicinity of the heart, in the arch of the 
aorta, and in the extremities, where the 
arteries are exposed to frequent injuries 
by stretching, violent bodily exertions, 
thrusts, falls, and contusions. An in¬ 
ternal aneurism may burst and cause 
death. 

Ancrara (ang-ga-r&'), a Siberian river 
nilgai a which flowg into Lake Baikal 

at its n. extremity, and leaves it near 
the s. w. end, latterly joining the Yenisei 
as the Lower Angara or Upper Tun- 
guska. 

Anffel (an'jel '■> Greek angelos , a mes- 
o senger), one of those spiritual 
intelligences who are regarded as dwell¬ 
ing in heaven and employed as the 
ministers or agents of God. To these the 
name of good angels is sometimes given, 
to distinguish them from bad angels, who 
were originally created to occupy the 
same blissful abode, but lost it by rebel¬ 
lion. Scripture frequently speaks of 
angels, but with great reserve, Michael 
and Gabriel alone being mentioned by 
name in the canonical books, while 
Raphael is mentioned in the Apocrypha. 
The angels are represented in Scripture 
as in the most elevated state of intelli¬ 
gence, purity, and bliss, ever doing the will 
of God so perfectly that we can seek for 
nothing higher or better than to aim at 
being like them. There are indications 
of a diversity of rank and power among 
them, and something like angelic orders. 
They are represented as frequently tak¬ 
ing part in communications made from 
heaven to earth, as directly and actively 
ministering to the good of believers, and 
shielding or delivering them from evils 
incident to their earthly lot. That every 
person has a good and a bad angel attend¬ 
ant on him was an early belief, and is 
held to some extent yet. Roman 
Catholics show a certain veneration or 




Angel 


Angers 


worship to angels, and beg their prayers 
and their kind offices; Protestants con¬ 
sider this unlawful. 

Ariosi a Sold coin introduced into Eng¬ 
s’ * land in the reign of Edward 
IV and coined down to the Common¬ 
wealth, so named from having the repre¬ 



sentation of the archangel Michael pierc¬ 
ing a dragon upon it. It had different 
value in different reigns, varying from 
6s. 8 d. to 10s. 


An^el-fish a ^Q uatlna angelus, 
& ’ nearly allied to the 

sharks, very ugly and voracious, preying 
on other fish. It is from 6 to 8 feet long, 
and takes its name from its pectoral fins, 
which are very large, extending horizon¬ 
tally like wings when spread. This fish 
connects the rays with the sharks, but it 
differs from both in having its mouth 
placed at the extremity of the head. It 
is common on the south coasts of Britain, 
and is also called Monk fish and Fiddle- 
fish. 


AnP’fdlPfll (an-jel'i-kal), a name of 
xxng ciioax the plant genus Arch _ 

angelica , tribe Angelicidw. A. triquinata, 
common in fields in north and west of the 
United States, is a plant well known for 
its aromatic properties; stem dark purple, 
furrowed, four to six feet high ; flowers 
greenish white. The name is also given 
to the Archangelica officinalis, which has 
greenish flowers, to be found on the 
banks of rivers and ditches in the north 
of Europe, once generally cultivated as an 
esculent, and still valued for its medicinal 
properties. It has a large, fleshy, aro¬ 
matic root, and a strong-furrowed, 
branched stem as high as a man. It is 
cultivated for its agreeable aromatic odor 
and carminative properties. Its blanched 
stems, candied with sugar, form a very 
agreeable sweetmeat, possessing tonic and 
stomachic qualities. 


Angelico (an-jel'i-ko), Fra, the com- 
® mon appellation of Fra 

Giovanni da Fiesole, one of the most 
celebrated of the early Italian painters. 
Born 1387, he entered the Dominican 
order in 1407, and was employed by 
Cosmo de Medici in painting the mon¬ 
astery of St. Mark and the church of St. 


Annunziata with frescoes. These pic¬ 
tures gained him so much celebrity that 
Nicholas V invited him to Rome, to orna¬ 
ment his private chapel in the Vatican, 
and offered him the archbishopric of 
Florence, which was declined. He died 
at Rome 1455. His works were consid¬ 
ered unrivalled in finish and in sweetness 
and harmony of color, and were made the 
models for religious painters of his own 
and succeeding generations. His easel pic¬ 
tures are not rare in European galleries. 

Ansrell ( an, J el )> James Burrell, 

® scholar and diplomat, born at 
Scituate, Rhode Island, in 1829; grad¬ 
uated at Brown University in 1849, and 
was professor of modern languages there, 
1853-60. Edited the Providence Journal, 
1860-66, was president of the University 
of Vermont 1866-71, and afterwards pres¬ 
ident of the University of Michigan. In 
1880-81 he was Minister to China, and to 
Turkey 1897-8. 

Ano*pln (&ng'eln), a district in Schles- 
wig of about 300 sq. m., 
bounded N. by the Bay of Flensburg, s. by 
the Schlei, e. by the Baltic, the only con¬ 
tinental territory which has retained the 
name of the Angles. 

A Turpin (an'je-lo), Michael. See 
Aiigciu Buonarotti 

An ermine (an'je-lus), in the Roman 
Catholic Church a short 
form of prayer in honor of the incarna¬ 
tion, consisting mainly of versicles and 
responses, the angelic salutation three 
times repeated, and a collect, so named 
from the word with which it commences, 
‘ Angelus Domini’ (Angel of the Lord). 
Hence, also, the bell tolled in the morn¬ 
ing, at noon, and in the evening to indi¬ 
cate the time when the angelus is to be 
recited. 

Anp’prmann (ong'er-m&n), a Swedish 
river which fallg . nto 

the Gulf of Bothnia after a course of 200 
miles, and is noted for its fine scenery. 

Ang’ermlinde ( an s' er ; m ^ n-d e), a 

° town in Prussia, on 

Lake Miinde, 42 miles northeast of Berlin. 
Pop. 7,466. 

Angers (ap-zha), a town and river- 

8 port of France, capital of the 
department of Maine-et-Loire, and for¬ 
merly of the province of Anjou, on the 
banks of the Maine, 5 y 2 miles from the 
Loire, 150 miles s. w. of Paris. Has 
an old castle, once a place of great 
strength, now used as a prison, barrack, 
and powder-magazine; a fine cathedral 
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
with very fine old painted windows, and 
the remains of a hospital founded by 
Henry II of England in 1155; manu¬ 
factures sail-cloth, hosiery, leather and 






Angevins 


Anglesey 


chemicals. In the neighborhood are im¬ 
mense slate-quarries. Pop. 73,585. 

Anp’pvin** (an'je-vins), natives of 
xingcvina Anjou> 0 f te n applied to 

the race of English sovereigns called 
Plantagenets (which see). Anjou became 
connected with England by the marriage 
of Matilda, daughter of Henry I, with 
Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou. The 
Angevin kings of England were Henry 
II, Richard I, John, Henry III, Ed¬ 
ward I, Edw r ard II, Edward III, and 
Richard I. 

Anffilbert (ang'gil-bert), St., the 
o most celebrated poet of 

his age, secretary and friend of Charle¬ 
magne, whose daughter, Bertha, he mar¬ 
ried. In the latter part of his life he re¬ 
tired to a monastery, of which he became 
abbot. Was the author of some short 
Latin poems. Died 814. 

Angina Pectoris m2?- 

spasm, a disease characterized by an ex¬ 
tremely acute constriction, felt generally 
in the lower part of the sternum, and 
extending along the whole side of the 
chest and into the corresponding arm, a 
sense of suffocation, faintness, and ap¬ 
prehension of approaching death : seldom 
experienced by any but those with organic 
heart disease. The disease rarely occurs 
before middle age and is more frequent 
in men than in women. Those liable 
to attack must lead a quiet, temperate 
life, avoiding all scenes which would un¬ 
duly rouse their emotions. The first at¬ 
tack is occasionally fatal, but usually 
death occurs as the result of repeated 
seizures. The paroxysm may be relieved 
by opiates, or the inhalation, under due 
precaution, of anaesthetic vapors. 
ArurinsTlPm (an'ji-o-sperm), a term 

iingiospeim for any plant which has 

its seeds enclosed in a seed-vessel. Ex¬ 
ogens are divided into those whose seeds 
are enclosed in a seed-vessel and those 
with seeds produced and ripened without 
the production of a seed-vessel. The 
former are angiosperms, and constitute 
the principal part of the species; the 
latter are gymnosperms, and chiefly con¬ 
sist of the Coniferae and Cycadaceae. 
AnP’le (ang'gl). the point where two 
^ lines meet, or the meeting of 
two lines in a point. A plane rectilineal 
angle is formed by two straight lines 
which meet one another, but are not in 
the same straight line; it may be con¬ 
sidered the degree of opening or diverg¬ 
ence of the two straight lines which thus 
meet one another. A right angle is an 
angle formed by a straight line falling on 
another perpendicularly, or an angle 
which is measured by an arc of 90 de¬ 


grees. When a straight line, as A B (fig. 
1), standing on another straight line c d, 
makes the two angles ABC and a B D 
equal to one another, each of these angles 



is called a right angle. An acute angle 
is that which is less than a right angle, 
as E b C. An obtuse angle is that which 
is greater than a right angle, as e b d. 
Acute and obtuse angles are both called 
oblique , in opposition to right angles. 
Exterior or external angles , the angles of 
any rectilineal figure without it, made by 
producing the sides; thus, if the sides 
a b, b c, c a of the triangle a b c (fig. 2) 
be produced to the points fde, the angles 
cbf, acd, bae are called exterior or 
external angles. A solid angle is that 
which is made by more than two plane 
angles meeting in one point and not lying 
in the same plane, as the angle of a cube. 
A spherical angle is an angle on the sur¬ 
face of a sphere, contained between the 
arcs of two great circles which intersect 
each other. 

A vi crlev.fi cli (ang'gler; Lophius pisca- 
xingiei iibii torius)f also from its 

habits and appearance called Fishing-frog 
and Sea-devil , a remarkable fish often 
found on the British coasts. It is from 3 
to 5 feet long; the head is very wide, de¬ 
pressed, with protuberances, and bearing 
long separate movable tendrils; the mouth 
is capacious. The American Angler, 
Fishing-frog or Goose-fish, of the Atlantic, 
is from two to three feet long; it is ex¬ 
ceedingly voracious; its large mouth al¬ 
lows it to swallow fish about as big as 
itself. 

AnP’lpq (an'gles) a Low German tribe 
® that in the earliest historical 
period had its seat in the district about 
Angeln, in the duchy of Schleswig, and in 
the fifth century and subsequently crossed 
over to Britain along with bands of Sax¬ 
ons and Jutes (and probably Frisians 
also), and colonized a great part of what 
from this tribe has received the name of 
England, as well as a portion of the Low¬ 
lands of Scotland. The Angles formed the 
largest body among the Germanic settlers 
in Britain, and founded the three king¬ 
doms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Nor¬ 
thumbria. 

Anp*lpqpv (ang'gl-se), or Anglesea 
xingicacy (<the Ang i es > island’), an 

island and county of North Wales, in the 






Anglesey 


Angling 


Irish Sea, separated from the mainland 1833. In 1846-52 he was master-general 
by the Menai Strait; 20 miles long and of the ordnance. He died in 1854. 

17 miles broad ; area, 193,511 acres. The Anglican (ang'gli-kan) Church, a 
surface is comparatively flat, the climate » term which strictly em- 

is milder than that of the adjoining coast, braces only the Church of England and 
and the soil fertile and tolerably well the Protestant Episcopal churches in Ire- 
cultivated. Anglesey yields a little cop- land, Scotland, and the colonies, but is 
per, lead, silver, ocher, etc. The Menai sometimes used to include also the Epis- 
Strait is crossed by a magnificent suspen- copal churches of the United States. The 
sion-bridge, 580 feet between the piers and doctrines of the Anglican Church are laid 
100 feet above highwater mark, and also down in the Thirty-nine Articles, and its 
by the great Britannia Tubular Railway ritual is contained in the Book of Corn- 
Bridge. The chief market-towns are mon Prayer. Within the body there is 
Beaumaris, Holyhead, Llangefni, and room for considerable latitude of belief 
Amlwch. Pop. 50,943. and doctrine, and three sections are some- 

Ans’lesev Henry William Paget, times spoken of by the names of the High 
o 9 Marquis of, English sol- Church, Low Church, and Broad Church, 

dier and statesman, the eldest son of See England —Church. 

Henry, first Earl of Uxbridge, was born Ang’HlU? ( an S'gling)> the art of catch- 
in 1768. Educated at Oxford, he entered ® ° ing fish with a hook or angle 
the army in 1793, and in 1794 he took (A. Sax. angel) baited with worms, small 


\ 



Skeleton of Angler-fish (Lophius piscatorius). 


part in the campaign in Flanders under 
the Duke of York. In 1808 he was sent 
into Spain with two brigades of cavalry 
to join Sir John Moore, and in the 
retreat to Coruna commanded the rear 
guard. In 1812 he became, by his father’s 
death, Earl of Uxbridge. On Napoleon’s 
escape from Elba he was appointed com¬ 
mander of the British cavalry, and at 
the battle of Waterloo, by the charge 
of the heavy brigade overthrew the Im¬ 
perial Guard. For his services he was 
created Marquis of Anglesey. In 1828 
he became lord-lieutenant of Ireland and 
made himself extremely popular, but was 
recalled in consequence of favoring Cath¬ 
olic emancipation. He was again lord- 
lieutenant in 1830; but lost his popularity 
by his opposition to O’Connell and his 
instrumentality in the passing of the Irish 
coercion acts; and he quitted office in 


fish, flies, etc. We find occasional allu¬ 
sions to this pursuit among the Greek and 
Latin classical writers; it is mentioned 
several times in the Old Testament, and 
it was practised by the ancient Egyptians. 
The oldest work on the subject in English 
is the Treatyse of Fysshinge with an 
Angle, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 
1496. along with treatises on hunting and 
hawking, the whole being ascribed to 
Dame Juliana Berners or Barnes, prior¬ 
ess of a nunnery near St. Alban. Wal¬ 
ton’s inimitable discourse on angling was 
first printed in 1653. The chief appli¬ 
ances required by an angler are a rod, 
line, hooks, and baits. Rods are made 
of various materials, and of various sizes. 
The cane rods are lightest; and where 
fishing-tackle is sold they most commonly 
have the.preference ; but in country places 
the rod is often of the angler’s own man- 




Angling 


Anglo-Saxons 


ufacture. Rods are commonly made in 
separate joints so as to be easily taken 
to pieces and put up again. They are 
made to taper from the butt end to the 
top, and are usually possessed of a con¬ 
siderable amount of elasticity. In length 
they may vary from 10 feet to more than 
double, with a corresponding difference 
in strength—a rod for salmon being 
necessarily much stronger than one suited 
for ordinary brook trout. The reel, an 
apparatus for winding up the line, is at¬ 
tached to the rod near the lower end, 
where the hand grasps it while fishing. 
The best are usually made of brass, are 
of simple construction, and so made as 
to wind or unwind freely and rapidly. 
That part of the line which passes along 
the rod and is wound on the reel is called 
the reel line , and may vary from 20 to 
100 yards in length, according to the re¬ 
quirements of the situation ; it is usually 
made of twisted horse hair and silk, or 
of oiled silk alone. The casting line, 
which is attached to this, is made of the 
same materials, but lighter and finer. 
To the end of this is tied a piece of fine 
gut, on which the hook, or hooks, are 
fixed. The casting or gut lines should de¬ 
crease in thickness from the reel line to 
the hooks. The size and kind of hook 
must of course entirely depend on the 
kind of fish that are angled for. Floats 
formed of cork, goose and swan quills, 
etc., are often used to buoy up the hook 
so that it may float clear of the bottom. 
For heavy fish or strong streams a cork 
float is used; in slow water and for 
lighter fish quill floats. Baits may con¬ 
sist of a great variety of materials, nat¬ 
ural or artificial. The principal natural 
baits are worms: common garden worms, 
brandlings, and red worms, maggots, in¬ 
sects, small fish (as minnows), salmon 
roe, etc. The artificial flies so much used 
in angling for trout and salmon are com¬ 
posed of hairs, furs, and wools of every 
variety. Some angling authorities recom¬ 
mend that the artificial flies should. be 
made to resemble as closely as possible 
the insects on which the fish is wont to 
feed, but experience has shown that the 
most capricious and unnatural combina¬ 
tion of feather, fur, etc., have been often 
successful where the most artistic imi¬ 
tations have failed. Artificial minnows, 
or other small fish, are also used by way 
of bait, and are so contrived as to spin 
rapidly when drawn through the water in 
order to attract the notice of the fish 
angled for. Angling, especially with 
the fly, demands a great deal of 
skill and practice, the throwing of the 
line properly being the initial diffi¬ 
culty. 


AnP’lo-Saxnns (ang'glo- saks'uns), 
UligiU OclAUllb the name commonly 

given to the nation or people formed by 
the amalgamation of the Angles, Saxons, 
and Jutes, who settled in Britain in the 
fifth and sixth centuries. The tribes who 
were thus the ancestors of the bulk of 
the English-speaking nationalities came 
from North Germany, where they inhab¬ 
ited the parts about the mouths of the 
Elbe and Weser, and the first body of 
them who gained a footing in Britain are 
said to have landed in 449, and to have 
been led by Hengist and Horsa. From 
the preponderance of the Angles the whole 
country came to be called Engla-land, 
that is, the land of the Angles or English. 
As an outline of Anglo-Saxon history will 
be found in the article England, we shall 
here give only some particulars regarding 
the institutions and customs, language 
and literature, of the Anglo-Saxons. 

The whole Anglo-Saxon community was 
frequently spoken of as consisting of the 
eorls and the ceorls, or the nobles and 
common freemen. The former were the 
men of property and position, the latter 
were the small landholders, handicrafts¬ 
men, etc., who generally placed themselves 
under the protection of some nobleman, 
who was hence termed their hlaford or 
lord. Besides these there was the class 
of the serfs or slaves ( theowas ) who 
might be either born slaves or freemen 
who had forfeited their liberty by their 
crimes, or whom poverty or the fortune 
of war had brought into this position. 
They served as agricultural laborers on 
their masters’ estates, and were mere 
chattels, as absolutely the property of 
their master as his cattle. 

The king ( cyning, cyng) was at the 
head of the state; he was the highest of 
the nobles and the chief magistrate. He 
was not looked upon as ruling by any 
divine right, but by the will of the people, 
as represented by the witan (wise men) 
or great council of the nation. The new 
king was not always the direct and near¬ 
est heir of the late king, but one of the 
royal family whose abilities and char¬ 
acter recommended him for the office. 
He had the right of maintaining a stand¬ 
ing army of household troops, the duty of 
calling together the witan, and of laying 
before them public measures, with cer¬ 
tain distinctions of dress, dwelling, etc., 
all his privileges being possessed and 
exercised by the advice and consent of 
the witena-gemot or parliament (lit. meet¬ 
ing of the wise). Next in rank and dig¬ 
nity to the king were the ealdormen, who 
were the chief witan or counselors, and 
without whose assent laws could not be 
made, altered, or abrogated. They were 



Anglo-Saxons 


Anglo-Saxons 


at the head of the administration of 
justice in the shires, possessing both ju¬ 
dicial and executive authority, and had 
as their officers the sctr-gerefan or sher¬ 
iffs. The ealdorman and the king were 
surrounded by a number of followers 
called thegnas or thanes, who were bound 
by close ties to their superior. The scir- 
gertfa (shire-reeve or sheriff) was also 
an important functionary. He presided 
at the county court along with the ealdor¬ 
man and bishop, or alone in their ab¬ 
sence ; and he had to carry out the de¬ 
cisions of the court, levy fines, collect 
taxes, etc. The shires were divided into 
hundreds and tithings, the latter con¬ 
sisting of ten heads of families, who were 
jointly responsible to the state for the 
good conduct of any member of their 
body. For the trial and settlement of 
minor causes there was a hundred court 
held once a month. The place of the 
modern parliament was held by the wit- 
ena-gemot. Its members, who were not 
elected, comprised the aethelings or princes 
of the blood royal, the bishops and abbots, 
the ealdormen, the thanes, the sheriffs, 
etc. 

One of the peculiar features of Anglo- 
Saxon society was the wergyld, which 
was established for the settling of feuds. 
A sum, paid either in kind or in money, 
was placed upon the life of every free¬ 
man, according to his rank in the state, 
his birth, or his office. A corresponding 
sum was settled for every wound that 
could be inflicted upon his person; for 
nearly every injury that could be done 
to his civil rights, his honor, or his do¬ 
mestic peace, etc. From the operation 
of this principle no one from king to 
peasant was exempt. 

Agriculture, including especially the 
raising of cattle, sheep, and swine, was the 
chief occupation of the Anglo-Saxons. 
The manufactures were naturally of small 
moment. Iron was made to some extent, 
also some cloth, and saltworks were nu¬ 
merous. In embroidery and working in 
gold the English were famous over Eu¬ 
rope. There was a considerable trade at 
London, which was frequented by Nor¬ 
mans, French, Flemings, and the mer¬ 
chants of the Hanse towns. The houses 
were rude structures, but were often rich¬ 
ly furnished and hung with fine tapestry. 
The dress of the people was loose and 
flowing, composed chiefly of linen, and 
often adorned with embroidery. The men 
wore their hair long and flowing over 
their shoulders. Christianity was intro¬ 
duced among the Anglo-Saxons in the end 
of the sixth century by St. Augustine, 
who was sent by Pope Gregory the Great, 
and became the first Archbishop of Can¬ 


terbury. Kent, then under King Ethel- 
red, was the first place where it took 
root, and thence it soon spread over the 
rest of the country. The Anglo-Saxon 
Church long remained independent of 
Rome, notwithstanding the continual ef¬ 
forts of the popes to bring it under their 
power. It was not till the tenth century 
that this result was brought about by 
Dunstan. Many Anglo-Saxon ecclesi¬ 
astics were distinguished for learning and 
ability, the Venerable Bede holding the 
first place. 

> The Anglo-Saxon language , which is 
simply the earliest form of English, 
claims kinship with Dutch, Icelandic, 
Danish, Swedish, and German, especially 
with the Low German dialects (spoken 
in North Germany). The alphabet was 
substantially the same as that which we 
still use, except that some of the letters 
were different in form, while it had sepa¬ 
rate characters for the sounds of th in 
thy and in thing. Anglo-Saxon words 
terminated in a vowel much more fre¬ 
quently than the modern English, and al¬ 
together the language is so different that 
it has to be learned quite like a foreign 
tongue. Yet notwithstanding the large 
number of words of Latin or French ori¬ 
gin that our language now contains, and 
the changes it has undergone, its frame¬ 
work, so to speak, is still Anglo-Saxon. 
Many chapters of the New Testament do 
not contain more than 4 per cent of non- 
Teutonic words, and as a whole it aver¬ 
ages perhaps 6 or 7. 

The existing remains of Anglo-Saxon 
literature include compositions in prose 
and poetry, some of which must be 
referred to a very early period, one or 
two perhaps to a time before the Angles 
and Saxons emigrated to England. The 
most important Anglo-Saxon poem is 
that called Beowulf, after its hero, ex¬ 
tending to more than 6,000 lines. Beo¬ 
wulf is a Scandinavian prince, who slays 
a fiendish cannibal, after encountering 
supernatural perils, and is at last slain 
in a contest with a frightful dragon. Its 
scene appears to be laid entirely in 
Scandinavia. Its date is uncertain ; parts 
of it may have been brought over at the 
emigration from Germany, though in its 
present form it is much later than this. 
The poetical remains include a number 
of religious poems, or poems on sacred 
themes; ecclesiastical narratives, as lives 
of saints and versified chronicles: psalms 
and hymns; secular lyrics; allegories, 
gnomes, riddles, etc. The religious class 
of poems was the largest, and of these 
Caedmon s (about 660) are the most re¬ 
markable. His poems consist of loose 
versions of considerable portions of the 



Angola 


Angouleme 


Bible history. Rhyme was little used in 
Anglo-Saxon poetry, alliteration being em¬ 
ployed instead, as in the older northern 
poetry generally. The style of the poetry 
is highly elliptical, and it is full of harsh 
inversions and obscure metaphors. 

The Anglo-Saxon prose remains consist 
of translations of portions of the Bible, 
homilies, philosophical writings, history, 
biography, laws, leases, charters, popular 
treatises on science and medicine, gram¬ 
mars, etc. Many of these were transla¬ 
tions from the Latin. The Anglo-Saxon 
versions of the Gospels, next to the 
Moeso-Gothic, are the earliest scriptural 
translations in any modern language. 
The Psalms are said to have been trans¬ 
lated by Bishop Aldhelm (died 709), and 
also under Alfred’s direction; and the 
Gospel of St. John by Bede; but it is 
not known who w T ere the authors of the 
extant versions. A translation of the 
first seven books of the Bible is believed 
to have been the work of JElfric, who 
was Abbot of Ensham and flourished in 
the beginning of the eleventh century. 
We have also eighty homilies from his 
pen, several theological treatises, a Latin 
grammar, etc. King Alfred was a diligent 
author, besides being a translator of 
Latin works. We have under his name 
translations of De Consolatione Philo¬ 
sophic , of Boethius, the Universal History 
of Orosius, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, 
the Pastoral Care of Gregory the Great, 
etc. The most valuable to us of the 
Anglo-Saxon prose writings is the Saxon 
Chronicle, as it is called, a collection of 
annals recording important events in the 
history of the country, and compiled in 
different religious houses. The latest text 
comes down to 1154. A considerable 
body of laws remains, as well as a large 
number of charters. • The whole of the 
literature has never yet been printed. 

An cm lei (an-go'la), a Portuguese ter- 
Ullguict r j tory j n Western Africa, 

south of the Congo, extending from about 
lat. 6° s. to lat. 17° s. (area about 500,- 
000 sq. m.; pop. 4,000,000). It is flat 
and sterile on the coast, but becomes hilly 
or mountainous and fertile in the interior, 
and is watered by several streams, of 
which the Coanza (Kwanza) is the 
largest. The principal town is the sea¬ 
port of St. Paul de Loanda, which was 
long the great Portuguese slave-mart. 
Exports ivory, palm-oil, coffee, hides, 
gum, wax, etc. 

Angola Pea ^Z'pei" 

Ancrnra (an-go'ra, anc. Ancy'ra), a 
‘ n ’ 1A ° UA town in the interior of Asi¬ 
atic Turkey, 215 miles e. s. e. of Constan¬ 
tinople, with considerable remains of 


Byzantine architecture, and relics of ear¬ 
lier times, both Greek and Roman, such 
as the remnants of the Monumentum An- 
cyranum, raised in honor of the Emperor 
Augustus. All the animals of this region 
are long haired, especially the goats 
(see Goat), sheep, and cats. This hair 
forms an important export as well as the 
fabric called camlet here manufactured 
from it; other exports being goats’ skins, 
dyestuffs, gums, honey and wax, etc. 
Estimated pop. 30,000, more than one- 
third of them Armenians. 

Angora Cat, ^,,"£,*“5 

the common cat, said to belong originally 
to Angora. 

Ancrnrd PJ-naf a variety of the com- 

iingora uoat, mon goat with long 

silky hair. See Goat. 

Ancmctnra (an-gos-tu’ra), or Ciudad 
xingubimct Bolivar? a city of Ven _ 

ezuela, capital of the province of Bolivar, 
on the Orinoco, about 225 miles above 
its mouth, with governor’s residence, a 
college, a handsome cathedral, and a con¬ 
siderable trade, steamers and sailing ves¬ 
sels ascending to the town. Exports: 
gold, cotton, indigo, tobacco, coffee, cattle, 
etc.; imports: manufactured goods, wines, 
flour, etc. Pop. about 10,000. 

Angostura Bark. «£ er 

bark obtained chiefly from Galipea offici¬ 
nalis, a tree 10 to 20 feet high, grow 
ing in the northern regions of South 
America; nat. order Rutaceae. The bark 



Angostura-bark Tree. 

is valuable as a tonic and febrifuge, and 
is also used for a kind of bitters. From 
this bark being adulterated, indeed some¬ 
times entirely replaced, by the poisonous 
bark of Strychnos Hux Vomica, its use 
as a medicine has been almost given up. 

AnP’nnlpmP (an-go-lam). an ancient 
xiiigumcuic tQWn of Western FranC e t 



Angra 


Aniline 


capital of dep. Charente, on the Charente, 
60 miles n. n. e. of Bordeaux, on the sum¬ 
mit of a rocky hill. It has a fine old 
cathedral, a beautiful modern town-hall, 
a lyceum, public library, natural history 
museum, hospital, lunatic asylum, etc. 
There are manufactures of paper, wool¬ 
ens, linens, distilleries, sugar-works, tan¬ 
neries, etc. Pop. (1906) 30,040. 
Angra (an'gra), a seaport of Ter- 
® ceira, one of the Azores, with 
the only convenient harbor in the whole 
group. It has a cathedral, a military 
college and arsenal, etc., and is the resi¬ 
dence of the governor-general of the 
Azores, and of the foreign consuls. Pop. 
(1900) 10,788. 

Angra Peqnena 

a bay on the west of Namaqualand, S. 
Africa, where the German commercial 
firm Luderitz in 1883 acquired a strip of 
territory and established a trading sta¬ 
tion. In 1884, notwithstanding some 
weak protests of the British, Germany 
took under her protection the whole 
coast territory from the Orange River to 
26° s. lat., and soon after extended the 
protectorate to the Portuguese fron¬ 
tier, but not including the British settle¬ 
ment of Walfisch Bay. 

Atlg’ri (an'gre), a town of Southern 
® Italy, 12 m. n. w. of Salerno, in 
the center of a region which produces 
grapes, cotton, and tobacco in great 
quantities. Pop. 6,557. 


Anguilla (an-gwil'la). See Eel. 

Anguilla (ang-gil'a), or Snake Is- 
® land, one of the British 

West India Islands, 60 m. n. e. of St. 
Kitts; about 20 m. long, with a breadth 
varying from 3 to 1*4 m.; area, 35 sq. 
m. There is a saline lake in the center, 
which yields a large quantity of salt. 
Pop. (1901) 3890. 

Anguis (ang'gwis). See Blind-worm. 


Ansrus (aag'gus), a name of Forfar- 
& shire. 

Anhalt (Sn'h&lt), a duchy of North 
Germany, lying partly in the 
plains of the Middle Elbe, and partly in 
the valleys and uplands of the Lower 
Harz, and almost entirely surrounded by 
Prussia; area, 906 square miles. All 
sorts of grain, wheat especially, are 
grown in abundance; also flax, rape, 
potatoes, tobacco, hops, and fruit. Ex¬ 
cellent cattle are bred. The inhabitants 
are principally occupied in agriculture, 
though there are some iron-works and 
manufactures of woolens, linens, beet- 
sugar, tobacco, etc. The dukes of Anhalt 
trace their origin to Bernard (1170- 


1212), son of Albert the Bear. In time 
the family split up into numerous 
branches, and the territory was latterly 
held by three dukes (Anhalt-Kothen, 
Anhalt-Bernburg, and Anhalt-Dessau). 
In 1863 the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau be¬ 
came sole heir to the three duchies. The 
united principality is now incorporated in 
the German Empire, and has one vote in 
the Bundesrath and two in the Reichstag. 
Pop. 328,007, almost all Protestants. 
The chief towns are Dessau, Bernburg, 
Kothen and Zerbst. 

Anlinlf (an'holt), an island belong¬ 
ing to Denmark, in the Catte- 
gat, midway between Jutland and Swe¬ 
den, 7 m. long, 41 broad, largely covered 
with drift-sand, and surrounded by dan¬ 
gerous banks and reefs. Pop. about 200. 

A n li Trrlri H p (an-hi'drid), one of a class 
Annyanae of chemical com pounds, 

which may be regarded as representing an 
acid minus the water in its composition. 
They were formerly called anhydrous 
acids. 

Anhydrite (an-hi'drit), anhydrous 
muiyuntc sulphate of calcium, a 

mineral presenting several varieties of 
structure and color. The vulpinite of 
Italy possesses a granular structure, re¬ 
sembling a coarse-grained marble, and 
is used in sculpture. Its color is grayish 
white, intermingled with blue. 

Ani ( an e)> a ruined city in Russian 
Armenia, formerly the residence of 
the Armenian dynasty of the Bagratidse, 
having in the eleventh century a pop. of 
100,000; in the thirteenth century de¬ 
stroyed by the Mongols. 

Aniene (&-ne-a'na). See Anio. 


AniliriP (an'i-lin), a substance of im¬ 
portance as the basis of a 
number of brilliant and durable dyes. It 
is found in small quantities in coal-tar, 
but the aniline of commerce is obtained 
from benzene or benzole, a constituent of 
coal-tar, consisting of hydrogen and car¬ 
bon. Benzene, when acted on by nitric 
acid, produces nitrobenzene; and this 
substance again, when treated with nas¬ 
cent hydrogen, generally produced by the 
action of acetic acid upon iron filings or 
scraps, yields aniline. It is a colorless, 
oily liquid, somewhat heavier than water, 
with a peculiar vinous smell and a burn¬ 
ing taste. Its name is derived from anil, 
the Portuguese and Spanish name for in¬ 
digo, from the dry distillation of which 
substance it was first obtained by the 
chemist Unverdorben in 1826. When 
acted on by arsenous acid, bichromate of 
potassium, stannic chloride, etc., aniline 
produces a great variety of compounds, 
many of which are possessed of very beau- 



Anilism 


Animal 


tiful colors, and are known by the names 
of aniline purple, aniline green, roseine, 
violine, bleu de Paris, magenta, etc. The 
manufacture of these aniline or coal-tar 
dyes as a branch of industry was intro¬ 
duced in 1856 and has since grown large. 
Anilism (an'i-lizm), aniline poison- 
1 ing, a name given to the ag¬ 

gregate of symptoms which often show 
themselves in those employed in aniline 
works, resulting from the inhalation of 
aniline vapors. It may be either acute 
or chronic. In a slight attack of the 
former kind, the lips, cheeks, and ears 
become of a bluish color, and the per¬ 
son’s walk may be unsteady; in severe 
cases there is loss of consciousness. 
Chronic anilism is accompanied by de¬ 
rangement of the digestive organs and of 
the nervous system, headaches, eruptions 
on the skin, muscular weakness, etc. 

Animal (an'i-mal), an organized and 
Uliiiiidi sentient living being Li f e 

in the earlier periods of natural history 
was attributed almost exclusively to ani¬ 
mals. With the progress of science, how¬ 
ever, it was extended to plants. In the 
case of the higher animals and plants 
there is no difficulty in assigning the in¬ 
dividual to one of the two great kingdoms 
of organic nature, but in their lowest 
manifestations the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms are brought into such immediate 
contact that it becomes almost impossible 
to assign them precise limits, and to say 
with certainty where the one begins and 
the other ends. From form no absolute 
distinction can be fixed between animals 
and plants. Many animals, such as the 
sea-shrubs, sea-mats, etc., so resemble 
plants in external appearance that they 
were, and even yet popularly are, looked 
upon as such. With regard to internal 
structure no line of demarkation can be 
laid down, all plants and animals being, 
in this respect, fundamentally similar; 
that is, alike composed of molecular, cel¬ 
lular, and fibrous tissues. Neither are 
the chemical characters of animal and 
vegetable substances more distinct. Api- 
mals contain in their tissues and fluids 
a larger proportion of nitrogen than 
plants, while plants are richer in carbo¬ 
naceous compounds than the former. In 
some animals, moreover, substances al¬ 
most exclusively confined to plants pre 
found. Thus the outer wall of Sea-squirts 
contains cellulose, a substance largely 
found in plant-tissues; while chlorophyll, 
the coloring-matter of plants, occurs in 
Hydra and many other lower animals. 
Poiver of motion , again, though broadly 
distinctive of animals, cannot be said to 
be absolutely characteristic of them. 
Thus many animals, as oysters, sponges, 


corals, etc., in their mature condition are 
rooted or fixed, while the embryos of 
many plants, together with numerous 
fully developed forms, are endowed with 
locomotive power by means of vibratile, 
hair-like processes called cilia. The dis¬ 
tinctive points between animals and 
plants which are most to be relied on are 
those derived from the nature and mode 
of assimilation of the food. Plants feed 
on inorganic matters consisting of water, 
ammonia, carbonic acid, and mineral mat¬ 
ters. They can take in only food which 
is presented to them in a liquid or gaseous 
state. The exceptions to these rules are 
found chiefly in the case of plants which 
live parasitically on other plants or on 
animals, in which cases the plant may 
be said to feed on organic matters, rep¬ 
resented by the juices of their hosts. 
Animals, on the contrary, require organ¬ 
ized matters for food. They feed either 
upon plants or upon other animals. But 
even carnivorous animals can be shown 
to be dependent upon plants for sub¬ 
sistence ; since the animals upon which 
Carnivora prey are in their turn sup¬ 
ported by plants. Animals, further, can 
subsist on solid food in addition to liq¬ 
uids and gases; but many animals (such 
as the tapeworms) live by the mere im¬ 
bibition of fluids which are absorbed by 
their tissues, such forms possessing no 
distinct digestive system. Animals re¬ 
quire a due supply of oxygen gas for 
their sustenance, this gas being used in 
respiration. Plants, on the contrary, re¬ 
quire carbonic acid. The animal exhales 
or gives out carbonic acid as the part re¬ 
sult of its tissue-waste, while the plant 
taking in this gas is enabled to decom¬ 
pose it into its constituent carbon and 
oxygen. The plant retains the former 
for the uses of its economy, and liberates 
the oxygen, which is thus restored to the 
atmosphere for the use of the animal. 
All animals possess a certain amount of 
heat or temperature which is necessary 
for the performance of vital action. The 
only classes of animals in which a con¬ 
stantly-elevated temperature is kept up 
are birds and mammals. The bodily heat 
of the former varies from 100° F. to 112° 
F., and of the latter from 96° F. to 104° 
F. The mean or average heat of the hu¬ 
man body is about 99° F., and it never 
falls much below this in health. The 
animals lower in organization than birds 
are named * cold-blooded,’ this term mean¬ 
ing in its strictly physiological sense that 
their temperature is usually that of the 
medium in which they live, and that it 
varies with that of the surrounding me¬ 
dium. ‘ Warm-blooded ’ animals, on the 
contrary, do not exhibit such variations. 



Animal Chemistry 


Animism 


but mostly retain their normal temper¬ 
ature in any atmosphere. The cause of 
the evolution of heat in the animal body 
is referred to the union (by a process 
resembling ordinary combustion) of the 
carbon and hydrogen of the system with 
the oxygen taken in from the air in the 
process of respiration. The details of 
animal organization will be treated under 
appropriate headings. 

Animal Chemistry, 

ic chemistry which investigates the com¬ 
position of the fluids and the solids of 
animals, and the chemical action that 
takes places in animal bodies. There 
are four elements, sometimes distinctive¬ 
ly named organic elements, which are in¬ 
variably found in living bodies,—-viz., car¬ 
bon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. To 
these may be added, as frequent constit¬ 
uents of the human body, sulphur, phos¬ 
phorus, lime, sodium, potassium, chlorine, 
and iron. The four organic elements are 
found in all the fluids and solids of the 
body. Sulphur occurs in blood and in 
many of the secretions. Phosphorus is 
also common, being found in nerves, in 
the teeth, and in fluids. Chlorine occurs 
in almost all parts of the body; lime is 
found in bone, in the teeth, and in the 
secretions; iron occurs in the blood, in 
urine, and in bile; and sodium, like 
chlorine, is of common occurrence. Po¬ 
tassium occurs in muscles, in nerves, and 
in the blood-corpuscles. Minute quan¬ 
tities of copper, silicon, manganese, lead, 
and lithium are also found in the human 
body. The compounds formed in the hu¬ 
man organism are divisible into the or¬ 
ganic and inorganic. The most frequent 
of the latter is water, of which two- 
thirds (by weight) of the body is com¬ 
posed. The organic compounds may, like 
the foods from which they are formed, be 
divided into the nitrogenous and non-ni- 
trogenous. Of the former the chief are 
albumen (found in blood, lymph, and 
chyle), casein (found in milk), myosin 
(in muscle), gelatin (obtained from 
bone), and others. The non-nitrogen- 
ous compounds are represented by or¬ 
ganic acids, such as formic, acetic, butyr¬ 
ic, stearic, etc.; by animal starches, su¬ 
gars ; and by fats and oils, as stearin and 
olein. 


Animalcule (an-i-mal'kul), a general 

/iiiiiiicuouie name giyen to many 

forms of animal life from their minute 
size. We thus speak of the Infusorian 
Animalcules among the Protozoa, of the 
Rotifera or Wheel Animalcules, etc., 
but the term is not now used in zoology 
in any strict significance, nor is it em¬ 
ployed in classification. 


Animal Heat. See Animal. 

Animal Magnetism, e 

Animals Cruelty to, an offense 
x ’against which societies have 

been formed and laws passed in various 
countries. Societies for prevention of 
cruelty to animals are in operation in all 
the states of the American Union. The 
first was chartered in New York in 1866, 
with Henry Bergh, president, whose ef¬ 
forts have been untiring. See also Vivi- 

SCCttOTlm 

Animal Worship, * p p r r a «£f, 

have prevailed, in the most widely dis¬ 
tant parts of the world, both the Old and 
the New, but nowhere to such an amaz¬ 
ing extent as in ancient Egypt, notwith¬ 
standing its high civilization. Nearly all 
the more important animals found in the 
country were regarded as sacred in some 
part of Egypt, and the degree of rever¬ 
ence paid to them was such that through¬ 
out Egypt the killing of a hawk or an 
ibis, whether voluntary or not, as pun¬ 
ished with death. The worship, however, 
was not, except in a few instances, paid 
to them as actual deities. The animals 
were merely regarded as sacred to the 
deities, and the worship paid to them was 
symbolical. 

An'ima 

plied by si 
to the ethereal essence or spirit supposed 
to be diffused through the universe, or¬ 
ganizing and acting throughout the whole 
and in all its different parts; a theory 
closely allied to Pantheism. 

An imp (an'i-ma), a resin supposed to 
be obtained from the trunk of 
an American tree (Hymencea Courbaril). 
It is of a transparent amber color, has 
a light, agreeable smell, and is sol¬ 
uble in alcohol. It strongly resembles 
copal, and, like it, is used in making 
varnishes. 

Animism (an'im-izm), the system of 
medicine propounded b y 
Stahl, and based on the idea that the soul 
( anima) is the seat of life. In modern 
usage the term is applied to express the 
general doctrine of souls and other spir¬ 
itual beings, and especially to the tend¬ 
ency, common among savage races, to ex¬ 
plain all the phenomena in nature not 
due to obvious natural causes by attribut¬ 
ing them to spiritual agency. Among 
the beliefs most characteristic of animism 
is that of a human apparitional soul, 
bearing the form and appearance of the 
body, and living after death a sort of 
semi-human life. 


TVTnn'di (L. t ‘the soul of the 
-LU.UU U1 W()rld term ap _ 

)me of the older philosophers 



Anio 


Anna Ivanovna 


Anio ( ane '°» now Aniene or Teve- 
rone), a river in Italy, a tribu¬ 
tary of the Tiber, which it enters from the 
east a short distance above Rome, re¬ 
nowned for the natural beauties of the 
valley through which it flows, and for 
the remains of ancient buildings there 
situated, as the villas of Maecenas and 
the Emperor Hadrian. 

AniS6 ( an, i s I Pimpinella anisum), 
an annual plant of the natural 
order Umbelliferae, a native of the Levant, 
and cultivated in Spain, France, Italy, 
Malta, etc., whence the fruit, popularly 
called aniseed, is imported. This fruit is 
ovate, with ten narrow ribs, between 
which are oil-vessels. It has an aromatic 
smell, and is largely employed to flavor 
liqueurs (aniseed or anisette), sweet¬ 
meats, etc. Star-anise is the fruit of an 
evergreen Asiatic tree (IXlicium anisci- 
turn) of the natural order Magnoliaceae, 
and is brought chiefly from China. Its 
flavor is similar to that of anise, and it is 
used for the* same purposes. An essen¬ 
tial oil is obtained from both kinds of 
anise, and is used in the preparation of 
cordials, for scenting soaps, etc. 

Aniseed. See Anise. 


Anisette ( an 'i _se t), a liqueur flavored 
with spirit of anise; also 
called aniseed. 


AnioU an ancient province 

J of France, now forming the 
department of Maine-et-Loire, and parts 
of the departments of Indre-et-Loire, 
Mayenne. and Sarthe; area, about 3,000 
sq. miles. In 1060 the province passed 
into the hands of the house of Gatinais, 
of which sprang Count Godfrey V, who, 
in 1127, married Matilda, daughter of 
Henry I of England, and so became the 
ancestor of the Plantagenet kings. Anjou 
remained in the possession of the English 
kings up to 1204. when John lost it to the 
French king Philip Augustus. In 1226 
Louis VIII bestowed this province on 
his brother Charles; but in 1328 it was 
reunited to the French crown. John I 
raised it to the rank of a ducal peerage, 
and gave it to his son Louis. Subse¬ 
quently it remained separate from the 
French crown till 1480, when it fell to 
Louis XI. 


Ankarstrom 


(dn'kar-streum), Jan 
Jakob, the murderer 
of Gustavus III of Sweden, was born 
about 1762, and was at first a page in the 
Swedish court, afterwards an officer in 
the royal body-guards. He was a strenu¬ 
ous opponent of the sovereign’s measures 
to restrict the privileges of the nobility, 
and joined Counts Horn and Ribbing and 
others in a plot to assassinate Gustavus. 


12—1 


The assassination took place on the 15th 
March, 1792. Ankarstrom was tried, 
tortured, and executed in April, dying 
boasting of his deed. 

Allker ( an s'ke r )> an obsolete measure 
used in Britain for spirits, 
beer, etc., containing 8% imperial gallons. 
A measure of similar capacity was used 
in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. 
Anklam (au'klam), a town in Prus¬ 
sia, province of Pomerania, 
47 miles n. w. of Stettin, on the river 
Peene, which is here navigable. Ship¬ 
building, woolen and cotton manufac¬ 
tures, soap-boiling, tanning, etc., are car¬ 
ried on. Pop. 14,602. 

Ankle (ang'kl). See Foot. 


Ankobar ( an - k o bar )» or ankoiber, 

a town in Abyssinia, capi¬ 
tal of Shoa, on a steep conical hill 8,200 
feet high. Pop. 6,000. 

Ankvlosis ( a Dg'ki-ld-sis), or An- 
. . chylo sis, stiffness of 

the joints caused by a more or less com¬ 
plete coalescence of the bones through 
ossification, often the result of inflamma¬ 
tion or injury. False ankylosis is stiff¬ 
ness of a joint when the disease is not 
in the joint itself, but in the tendinous 
and muscular parts by which it is sur¬ 
rounded. 

Alllia ( an ’ a )> an Anglo-Indian money 
of account, the sixteenth part of 
a rupee, and of the value of 1 y 2 d. 

Annabere ( an 'na-berg), a town in 
° kaxony, 47 miles s. w. of 
Dresden. Mining (for silver, cobalt, iron, 
etc.) is carried on, and there are manu¬ 
factures of lace, ribbons, fringes, but¬ 
tons, etc. Pop. (1905) 16,811. 

Anna Comnena (com-ne'na), dau ? h - 

ter ot Alexius Com- 
nenus I, Byzantine emperor. She was 
born 1083, and died 1148. After her 
father’s death she endeavored to secure 
the succession to her husband, Nicephorus 
Briennius, but was baffled by his want of 
energy and ambition. She wrote (in 
Greek) a life of her father Alexius, 
which, in the midst of much fulsome pane¬ 
gyric, contains some valuable and inter¬ 
esting information. She forms a char¬ 
acter in Sir Walter Scott’s Count Robert 
of Paris. 

Anna Ivanovna (e-va-nov'-na), Em¬ 
press of Russia; 
born in 1693, the daughter of Ivan, 
the elder half-brother of Peter the Great. 
She was married in 1710 to the Duke 
of Courland, in the following year was 
left a widow, and in 1730 ascended 
the throne of the czars on the condition 
proposed by the senate, that she would 
limit the absolute power of the czars, and 




Annals 


Anne 


do nothing without the advice of the 
council composed of the leading members 
of the Russian aristocracy. But no 
sooner had she ascended the throne than 
she declared her promise null, and pro¬ 
claimed herself autocrat of all the Rus- 
sias. She chose as her favorite Ernest 
John von Biren or Biron, who was soon 
all powerful in Russia, and ruled with 
great severity. Several of the leading 
nobles were executed, and many thousand 
men exiled to Siberia. In 1737 Anna 
forced the Courlanders to choose Biren as 
their duke, and nominated him at her 
death regent of the empire during, the 
minority of Prince Ivan (of Brunswick). 
Anna died in 1740. See Biren. 

Annals ( an,a ^ z )> a history of events 
a in chronological order, each 
event being recorded under the year in 
which it occurred. The name is derived 
from the first annual records of the Ro¬ 
mans, which w r ere called anndles ponti- 
ficum or anndles maximi , drawn up by 
the pontifex maximus (chief pontiff), 
The practice of keeping such annals was 
afterwards adopted also by various 
private individuals, as by Fabius Pictor, 
Calpurnius Piso, and others. The name 
hence came to be applied in later times 
to historical works in which the matter 
was treated with special reference to 
chronological arrangement, as to the An¬ 
nals of Tacitus. 

Annam (an-nam'). See Anam. 


Armamahop (a-na-ma-b5'), a sea- 
Ulllldlllciuue port in Western Africa, 

on the Gold Coast, 10 miles east of Cape 
Coast Castle, with some trade in gold 
dust, ivory, palm-oil, etc. 

Arman (an'nan), a royal and par- 
AUiia 1 liamentary burgh in Scotland, 
on the Annan, a little above its entrance 
into the Solway Firth, one of the Dum¬ 
fries district of burghs. Pop. 5,804.—The 
river Annan is a stream 40 miles long 
running through the central division of 
Dumfriesshire, to which it gives the name 
of Annandale. 


Annapolis 

Severn, near its mouth in Chesapeake 
Bay, 126 miles s. by e. of Baltimore. It 
contains a college (St. John’s), a state- 
house. and the United States naval 
academy, which was established here in 
1845. Oyster-packing is the chief in¬ 
dustry. Pop. 8,609. 

ollS formerl y Port Royal, a 
9 small town in Nova 
Scotia, on an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, 
with an important herring-fishery. It is 
the oldest European settlement in this 
part of America, dating from 1604. Set¬ 



tled by the French, it was taken by the 
English during the colonial wars and re¬ 
named after Queen Anne. Pop. (1901) 
1,019. 

Arm Arhnv county-seat of Wash- 
211111 211UU1 > tenaw Co., Michigan, 
38 miles w. of Detroit. Here is situated 
the University of Michigan, one of the 
most flourishing State universities in the 
country. It is in a pleasant, elevated 
situation, and has important manufac¬ 
tures. Pop. 14,817. 

Annates (an.'nats), a ye a r’s income 

claimed for many centuries 
by the pope on the death of any bishop, 
abbot, or parish priest, to be paid by his 
successor. In England they were at first 
paid to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but 
were afterwards appropriated by the 
popes. In 1532 the Parliament gave 
them to the crown; but Queen Anne re¬ 
stored them to the church by applying 
them to the augmentation of poor livings. 
See Queen Anne's Bounty. 

Anna+fn Arnotto (a-not-to), an 
ixiLiidi iu, orange _ red coloring mat¬ 
ter, obtained from the pulp surrounding 
the seeds of Bixa Orellana , a shrub native 
to tropical America, and -cultivated in 
Guiana, St. Domingo, and the East 
Indies. It is sometimes used as a dye for 
silk and cotton goods, though it does not 
produce a very durable color, but it is 
much used in medicine for tinting plasters 
and ointments, and to a considerable ex¬ 
tent by farmers for giving a rich color to 
cheese. 

Anne ( an ^» Q ueen Of Great Britain and 
Ireland, was born at Twickenham, 
near London, 6th February, 1664. She 
was the second daughter of James II, 
then Duke of York. In 1683 she was 
married to Prince George, brother to 



Queen Anne. 

King Christian V. of Denmark. On the 
arrival of the Prince of Orange in 1688, 
Anne wished to remain with her father; 
but she was prevailed upon by Lord 



Anne 


Annuity 


Churchill (afterwards Duke of Marl¬ 
borough) and his wife to join the trium¬ 
phant party. After the death of William 
III in 1702 she ascended the English 
throne. Her character was essentially 
weak, and she was governed first by 
Marlborough and his wife, and afterwards 
by Mrs. Masham. Most of the principal 
events of her reign are connected with 
the war of the Spanish Succession. The 
only important acquisition that England 
made by it was Gibraltar, which was 
captured in 1704. Another very impor¬ 
tant event of this reign was the union of 
England and Scotland under the name of 
Great Britain, which was accomplished in 
1707. She seems to have long cherished 
the wish of securing the succession to her 
brother James, but this was frustrated by 
the internal dissensions of the cabinet. 
Grieved at the disappointment of her se¬ 
cret wishes, she fell into a state of weak¬ 
ness and lethargy, and died, July 20, 
1714. 

An tip (° F Austria), daughter of Philip 
III of Spain, w T as born at 
Madrid in 1602, and in 1615 was married 
to Louis XIII of France, Richelieu, 
fearing the influence of her foreign con¬ 
nections, did everything he could to hum¬ 
ble her. In 1643 her husband died, and 
she was left regent, but placed under the 
control of a council. But the Parliament 
overthrew this arrangement, and entrusted 
her with full sovereign rights during the 
minority of her son, Louis XIV. She, 
however, brought upon herself the hatred 
of the nobles by her boundless confidence 
in Cardinal Mazarin, and was forced to 
flee from Paris during the wars of the 
Fronde. She ultimately quelled all oppo¬ 
sition, and was able in 1661 to transmit 
to her son unimpaired the royal authority. 
She spent the remainder of her life in re¬ 
tirement, and died January 20, 1666. 
Annealing* (an-el'ing), a process to 
a & which many articles of 
metal and glass are subjected after mak¬ 
ing, in order to render them more 
tenacious, and which consists in heating 
them and allowing them to cool slowly. 
When the metals are worked by the 
hammer, or rolled into plates, or drawn 
into wire, they acquire a certain amount 
of brittleness, which destroys their use¬ 
fulness, and has to be remedied by an¬ 
nealing. The tempering of steel is one 
kind of annealing. Annealing is partic¬ 
ularly employed in glass-houses, and con¬ 
sists in putting the glass vessels, as soon 
as they are formed and while they are yet 
hot, into a furnace or oven, in which they 
are suffered to cool gradually. The tough¬ 
ness is greatly increased by cooling the 
articles in oil. 


Annecv (an-se), an ancient tc 
J France, department of 


town in 

_, _-r_f Haute- 

Savoie, situated on the Lake of Annecy, 
21 miles s. of Geneva; contains a 
cathedral and a ruinous old castle, once 
the residence of the counts of Genevois; 
manufactures of cotton, leather, paper, 
and hardware. Pop. 10,763.—The lake is 
about 9 miles long and 2 broad. 
Annelida (a-neP-i-da), an extensive 


division 
nulosa or articu¬ 
late animals, so 
called because 
their bodies are 
formed of a great 
number of small 
rings. The earth¬ 
worm, the lob¬ 
worm, the nereis, 
and the leech be- 


or class of An- 



Annelida. 

auu 1, Leech (Sanguisuga of- 

lnnp- to fhio Hi fidnalis). 2, Syllis mon- 
long to this di- ilaris 3 Portion of same . 

vision. 

Anniston 


a thriving 
town, capital of Calhoun 
County, Alabama, 15 miles s. w. of Jack¬ 
sonville. Here are iron mines and ex¬ 
tensive iron works and other manufac¬ 
tures. It is a trade centre for cotton. 
Pop. 12,794. 

ATirmlinn (an-no-bon*) * or Annobom, 
XIIIIIUUUU a k eaut jf u i Spanish island 

of Western Africa, south of the Bight of 
Biafra, about 4 miles long by 2 miles 
broad, and rising abruptly to the height of 
3,000 feet, richly covered with vegetation. 
Pop. about 2,000. 

Annrmav (an-o-na), a town in South- 
u J ern France, department of 
Ard£che, 37 miles s. s. w. of Lyons, in a 
picturesque situation. It is the most im¬ 
portant town of Ard&che, manufacturing 
paper and glove leather to a large extent, 
also cloth, felt, silk stuffs, gloves, hosiery, 
etc. There is an obelisk in memory of 
Joseph Montgolfier of balloon fame, a 
native of the town. Pop. (1906) 15,403. 

Annotto. See Annatto. 


Annual ( an 'u-al), in botany, a plant 
xxi ii ua springs from seed, grows 

up, produces seed, and then dies, all with¬ 
in a single year or season. 

An'nnal in literature, the name given 
1 1 ’ to a class of publications 

which flourished between 1820 and 1860 
and were distinguished by great magnifi¬ 
cence both of binding and illustration, 
which rendered them much sought after 
as Christmas and New Year presents. 
Their contents were chiefly prose tales 
and ballads, lyrics, and other poetry. 

AllllUitV (a-nu'i-ti), a sum of money 
J paid annually to a person, 
and continuing either a certain number 



Annuity 


Anodon 


of years, or for an uncertain period, 
to be determined by a particular event, as 
the death of the recipient or annuitant, or 
that of the party liable to Day the an¬ 
nuity ; or the annuity may be perpetual. 
The payments are made at the end of 
each year, or at other periods. The rules 
and principles by which the present value 
of an annuity is to be computed have 
been the subjects of careful investigation. 
The present value of an annuity for a 
limited period is a sum which, if put at 
interest, will at the end of that period 
give an amount equal to the sum of all the 
payments of the annuity and interest; 
and, accordingly, if it be proposed to in¬ 
vest a certain sum of money in the pur¬ 
chase of an annuity for a given number 
of years the comparative value of the 
tw T o may be precisely estimated, the rate 
of interest being given. But annuities 
for uncertain periods, and particularly life 
annuities, are more frequent, and the 
value of the annuity is computed accord¬ 
ing to the probable duration of the life 
by which it is limited. If a person hav¬ 
ing a certain capital, and intending to 
spend this capital and the income of it 
during his own life, could know precisely 
how long he should live, he might lend 
this capital at a certain rate during his 
life, and by taking every year, besides the 
interest, a certain amount of the capital, 
he might secure the same annual amount 
for his support during his life in such 
manner that he should have the same sum 
to spend every year, and consume precise¬ 
ly his whole capital during his life. But 
since he does not know how long he is to 
live he agrees with an annuity office to 
take the risk of the duration of his life, 
and agree to pay him a certain annuity 
during his life in exchange for the capital 
which he proposes to invest in this way. 
The probable duration of his life, there¬ 
fore, becomes a subject of computation ; 
and for the purpose of making this calcu¬ 
lation tables of longevity are made by 
noting the proportions of deaths at certain 
ages in the same country or district. In 
Great Britain the government grants an¬ 
nuities, but in the United States the 
granting of annuities is confined to pri¬ 
vate companies or corporations. The fol¬ 
lowing are the approved rates of the best 
managed companies: In consideration of 
$1000 paid to a company the annuity 
granted to a person aged 40 would be 
$52.75 ; aged 45, $58.10; aged 50, $64.70; 
aged 55, $73.50; aged 60, $86.20; aged 
65, $100; aged 70, $123.45; aged 75, 
$145.95 ; aged 80, $180.15. The purchase 
of annuities, as a system, has never 
gained much foothold in America—the 
endowment plan of life insurance, by 


which after the lapse of a term of years 
the insured receives a sum in bulk, being 
preferred. 

Annul ni rl a (an-u-loi'da), in some 
Annuioiaa modern ZO oi og ical clas¬ 
sifications, a division (sub-kingdom) of 
animals, including the Rotifera, Scolecida 
(tapeworms, etc.), all which are more or 
less ring-like in appearance, and the 
Echinodermata, whose embryos show 
traces of annulation. 

Annnlnca (an-u-lo'sa), a division 
AimUlOSa (sub _ kingdom) of anima ls 

regarded by some as synonymous with the 
Arthropoda or Articulata: according to 
other systematists, including both the 
Articulata and Annulata or worms. 

Annunciation “of 

the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary in¬ 
forming her that she was to become the 
mother of our Lord.— Annunciation or 
Lady Day is a feast of the church in 
honor of the annunciation, celebrated on 
the 25th of March.—The Italian order of 
Knights of the Annunciation was in¬ 
stituted by Amadeus VI, Duke of Savoy, 
in 1360. The king is always grand¬ 
master. The knights must be of high 
rank, and must already be members of the 
order of St. Mauritius and St. Lazarus. 
—There are two orders of nuns of the 
Annunciation, one originally French, 
founded in 1501 by Joanna of Valois, the 
other Italian, founded in 1604 by Maria 
Vittoria Fornari of Genoa. 

AllOa ( an, °‘ a )» an animal ( Anoa de- 
pressicornis ) closely allied to the 
buffalo, about the size of an average 
sheep, very wild and fierce, inhabiting the 
rocky and mountainous localities of the 
island of Celebes. The horns are straight, 
thick at the root, and set nearly in a line 
with the forehead. 

Annhinm (a-no'bi-um), a genus of 
coleopterous insects, the 
larvae of which often do much damage by 
their boring into old wood, including 
several known by the name of death- 
watch. A. striatum, a common species, 
when frightened, is much given to feigning 
death. 

Anndf* (an'od; Gr. ana, up, hodos, 
way), the positive pole of the 
voltaic current, being that part of the 
surface of a chemically decomposing body 
which the electric current enters; op¬ 
posed to cathode (Gr. katu, down, 
hodos, way), the way by which it de¬ 
parts. 

Armrlnn (an'o-don), Anodon'ta, a 
genus of lamellibranchiate 
bivalves, including the fresh-water mus¬ 
sels, without or with very slight hinge- 
teeth. See Mussel. 




Anodyne 


Anonymous 



Anodyne ( an, °’din), a medicine, such 
J as an opiate or narcotic, 
which allays pain. 

Anointing* (a-noint'ing), rubbing the 

xiiiuiniiiig bQdy or gome part of . t 

with oil, often perfumed. From time im¬ 
memorial the nations of the East have 
been in the habit 
of anointing 
themselves for 
the sake of 
health and 
bea u t y. The 
Greeks and Ro- 
m a n s anointed 
themselves af¬ 
ter the bath. 

Wr estlers a- 
nointed them- 

selves in order Egyptian anoiutiog a Uuest. 
to render it more 

difficult for their antagonists to get hold 
of them. In Egypt it seems to have been 
common to anoint the head of guests 
when they entered the house where they 
were to be entertained, as shown in the 
cut. In the Mosaic law a sacred char¬ 
acter was attached to the anointing of the 
garments of the priests and things be¬ 
longing to the ceremonial of worship. 
The Jewish priests and kings were 
anointed when inducted into office, and 
were called the anointed of the Lord , to 
show that their persons were sacred and 
their office from God. In the Old Testa¬ 
ment also the prophecies respecting the 
Redeemer style him Messias, that is, the 
Anointed, which is also the meaning of 
his Greek name Christ. The custom of 
anointing still exists in the Roman 
Catholic Church in the ordination of 
priests and the confirmation of believers 
and the sacrament of extreme unction. 
The ceremony is also frequently a part of 
the coronation of kings. 

A rminci In re (a-nom'a-lur; Anoma- 

Anomamre larus) a genus of rodent 

animals inhabiting the west coast of 
Africa, resembling the flying-squirrels, but 
having the under surface of the tail 
‘ furnished for some distance from the 
roots with a series of large horny scales, 
which, when pressed against the trunk of 
a tree, may subserve the same purpose 
as those instruments with which a man 
climbs up a telegraph pole to set the 
wires.’ They are called also scale-tails, 
or scale-tailed squirrels, but some au¬ 
thorities class them with the porcupines 
rather than the squirrels. There are 
several species of them, but little is 
known of their habits. 

Anmrmlv (a-nom'a-li), in astronomy, 
Anuuicuy the angle which a line 

drawn from a planet to the «sun has 


passed through since the planet was last 
at its perihelion or nearest distance to the 
sun. The anomalistic year is the interval 
between two successive times at which the 
earth is in perihelion, or 365 days 6 hours 
13 minutes 45 seconds. In consequence 
of the advance of the earth’s perihelion 
among the stars in the same direction as 
the earth’s motion and of the precession 
of the equinoxes, which carries the 
equinoxes back in the opposite direction 
to the earth’s motion, the anomalistic year 
is longer than the sidereal year, and still 
longer than the tropical or common 
year. 

AYinmnra (a-no-mu'ra), a section of 
the crustaceans of the order 
Decapoda, with irregular tails not formed 
to assist in swimming, including the 
hermit-crabs and others. 

Anona (a-n6'na), a genus of plants, the 
type of the nat. order Anona- 
cese. A. squamosa (sweet-sop) grows in 
the West Indian 
Islands, and 
yields an edible 
fruit having a 
thick, sweet, 
luscious pulp. 

A. muricdt a 
(sour-sop) is 
cultivated in the 
West and East 
Indies; it pro¬ 
duces a large 
pear-shaped 
fruit, of a green¬ 
ish color, con¬ 
taining an agree¬ 
ably slightly acid 
pulp. The genus 

p *j?A uce | 9/ h e r Anona or Sour-sop (Anona 
edible fruits, as muricata). 

the common cus 

tard-apple or bullock’s heart, from A. 
reticulata, and the cherimoyer of Peru, 
from A. Cherimolia. 

(a-no-na'ce-e), a natural 
xinuiiaoccc order of trees and shrubs, 
having simple, alternate leaves, destitute 
of stipules, by which character they are 
distinguished from the Magnoliacese, to 
which they are otherwise closely allied. 
They are mainly tropical plants of the 
Old and the New World, and are gener¬ 
ally aromatic. See Anona. 

Anonymous i™'™)’ literally 

J without name, applied 

to anything which is the work of a person 
whose name is unknown or who keeps his 
name secret. Pseudonym is a term used 
for an assumed name. The knowledge of 
the anonymous and pseudonymous litera¬ 
ture is indispensable to the bibliographer, 
and large dictionaries giving the titles and 






Anoplotherium 


Ansgar 


writers of such works have been pub¬ 
lished. 

Anoplotherium (an-a-plo-the'ri-um) 

r an extinct genus of 

the Ungulata or Hoofed Quadrupeds, 
forming the type of a distinct family, 
which were in many respects intermediate 
between the swine and the true ruminants. 
These animals were pig-like in form, 
but possessed long tails, and had a cleft 
hoof, with two rudimentary toes. Some 
of them were as small as a guinea-pig, 
others as large as an ass. Six incisors, 
two canines, eight premolars, and six 
molars existed in each jaw, the series 
being continuous, no interval existing in 
the jaw. A. commune, from the Eocene 
rocks, is a familiar species. 

Anrmlnra (an-o-plu'ra), an order of 
xxnupiuia apterous insectS) of W h ic h 

the type is the genus Pediculus or louse. 

Anopshehr. See Anupshahr. 

Anorexia. See Appetite. 


Anosmia ( an ' os,m i _a )> a disease con¬ 
sisting in a diminution or 
destruction of the power of smelling, 
sometimes constitutional, but most fre¬ 
quently caused by strong and repeated 
stimulants, as snuff, applied to the 
olfactory nerves. 

Anonra. See Anura. 


Anquetil-Duperron ^’^'abr!. 

ham Hyacinthe, a French orientalist, 
born in 1731, died in 1805. He studied 
theology for some time, but soon devoted 
himself to the study of Hebrew, Arabic, 
and Persian. His zeal for the Oriental 
languages induced him to set out for In¬ 
dia, where he prevailed on some of the 
Parsee priests to instruct him in the Zend 
and Pehlevi and to give him some of the 
Zoroastrian books. In 1762 he returned to 
France with a valuable collection of MSS. 
In 1771 he published his Zend-Avesta , a 
translation of the Vendidad, and other 
sacred books, which excited great sensa¬ 
tion. Among his other works are L'lnde 
en Rapport avec VEurope (1790), and a 
selection from the Vedas. His knowl¬ 
edge of the Oriental languages was by no 
means exact. 

Ansbach. See Anspach. 

AlKplm (in'selm) St., a celebrated 
Christian philosopher and 
theologian, born at Aosta, in Piedmont, in 
1033; died at Canterbury 1109. At the 
age of twenty-seven (1060) he became a 
monk at Bee, in Normandy, whither he 
had been attracted by the celebrity of 
Lanfranc. Three years later he was 


elected prior, and in 1078 he was chosen 
abbot, which he remained for fifteen years. 
During this period of his life he wrote his 
first philosophical and religious works ; the 
dialogues on Truth and Free-will, and 
the treatises Monologion and Proslogion; 
and at the same time his influence made 
itself so felt among the monks under his 
charge that Bee became the chief seat 
of learning in Europe. In 1093 Anselm 
was offered by William Rufus the arch¬ 
bishopric of Canterbury, and accepted it, 
though with great reluctance, and with 
the condition that all the lands belonging 
to the see should be restored. William 
II soon quarreled with the archbishop, 
who would show no subservience to him, 
and would persist in acknowledging Pope 
Urban in opposition to the antipope Cle¬ 
ment. William ultimately had to give 
way, acknowledging Urban and conferring 
the pallium upon Anselm. The king be¬ 
came his bitter enemy, however, and so 
great were Anselm’s difficulties that in 
1097 he set out for Rome to consult with 
the pope. Urban received him with great 
distinction, but did not venture really to 
take the side of the prelate against the 
king, though William had refused to 
receive Anselm again as archbishop, and 
had seized on the revenues of the see of 
Canterbury, which he retained till his 
death in 1100. Anselm accordingly re¬ 
mained abroad, where he wrote most of 
his celebrated treatise on the atonement, 
entitled, Cur Deus Homo (' Why God was 
made Man ; ’ translated into English, Ox¬ 
ford, 1858). When William was succeed¬ 
ed by Henry I Anselm was recalled ; but 
Henry insisted that he should submit to 
be reinvested in his see by himself, al¬ 
though the popes claimed the right of 
investing for themselves alone. Much 
negotiation followed, and Henry did not 
surrender his claims till 1107, when 
Anselm’s long struggle on behalf of the 
rights of the church came to an end. 
Anselm was a great scholar, a deep and 
original thinker, and a man of the utmost 
saintliness and piety. The chief of his 
writings are the Monologion , the Proslo¬ 
gion, and the Cur Deus Homo. The first 
is an attempt to prove inductively the 
existence of God by pure reason without 
the aid of Scripture or authority; the 
second is an attempt to prove the same 
by the deductive method ; the Cur Deus 
Homo is intended to prove the necessity 
of the incarnation. Among his numerous 
other writings are more than 400 letters. 
His life was written bv his domestic 
chaplain and companion, Eadmer, a monk 
of Canterbury. 

An«iP*ar or Anshar, (an'sh&r), called 
® 9 the Apostle of the North, was 



Anson 


Ant 


born in 801 in Picardy, and he took the A listed (an'sted), David Thomas, an 
monastic vows while still in his boyhood. English geologist, born in 1814, 

In the midst of many difficulties he la- died in 1880. He was professor of geology 
bored as a missionary in Denmark and at King’s College, London, and assistant 
Sweden, dying in 864 or 865, with the secretary to the Geological Society, whose 
reputation of having undertaken, if not quarterly journal he edited for many 
the first, the most successful attempts for years. His writings on geology were 
the propagation of Christianity in the standard authorities. 

North. Anster ( an,_ster )» John, professor of 

An'con George, Lord, a celebrated civil law in the University of 

’English navigator; born 1697, Dublin, born in County Cork in 1793; 
died 1762. He entered the navy at an died in 1867. He published a volume of 
early age and became a commander in poems, and was a frequent contributor 
1722, and captain in 1724. In 1740 he to Blackwood’s Magazine , the Dublin 
was made commander of a fleet sent to University Magazine , the North British 
the South Sea, directed against the trade Review , etc., but is chiefly known by his 
and colonies of Spain. The expedition fine translation of Goethe’s Faust , 1835- 
consisted of five men-of-war and three 64. 

smaller vessels, which carried 1400 men. Anstev ( an ' st e), Christopher, an 
After much suffering and many stirring " English poet, born 1724, died 

adventures he reached the coast of Peru, 1805. He was author of The New Bath 
made several prizes, and captured and Guide , a humorous and satirical produc- 
burned the city of Paita. His squadron tion describing fashionable life at Bath 
was now reduced to one ship, the in the form of a series of letters in dif- 
Centurion, but with it he took the ferent varieties of meter, which had a 
Spanish treasure galleon from Acapulco, great reputation in its day. 
and arrived in England in 1744, with Atiq+pv "F See Guthrie , Thomas 
treasure to the amount of $2,500,000, hav- J) * Anthony. 

ing circumnavigated the globe. His ad- Anstrilther ( an ' stru ^-er; popularly 
ventures and discoveries are described in u an'ster), Easter and 

the well-known Anson’s Voyage, compiled Wester, two small royal and parlia- 
from materials furnished by Anson. A mentary burghs of Scotland, in Fife- 
few days after his return he was made shire, forming, with the contiguous 
rear-admiral of the blue, and not long royal burgh of Collardyke or Nether Ivil- 
after rear-admiral of the white. His renny, one fishing and seaport town. Pop. 
victory over the French admiral Jon- 1,663. 

qui£re, near Cape Finisterre in 1747, Ant the c0mm0n name of hymenop- 
raised him to the peerage, with the title > terous (or membranous-winged) 

of Lord Anson, Baron of Soberton. Four insects of various genera, of the family 
years afterwards he was made first lord Formicidse, found in most temperate and 
of the admiralty. In 1758 he commanded tropical regions. They are small but 
the fleet before Brest, protected the land- powerful insects, and have long been 
ing of the British at St. Malo, Cherbourg, noted for their remarkable intelligence 
etc., and received the repulsed troops into and interesting habits. They live in com- 
his vessels. munities regulated by definite laws, each 

Ansonia ( an- so'ni-a), a city of Con- member of the society bearing a well- 
necticut, on the Naugatuck defined and separate part in the work of 
River, 12 miles n. w. of New Haven, the colony. Each community consists of 
Has manufactures of clocks, brass and males; of females much larger than the 
copper goods, etc. Pop. 15,152. males; and of barren females, otherwise 

Anspach ( an ' s P a M> or Ansbach, a called neuters, workers, or nurses. The 
. town in Bavaria, at the neuters are wingless, and the males and 

junction of the Holzbach with the Lower females only acquire wings for their * nup- 
Rezat, 24 miles, southwest of Nurnberg. tial flight,’ after which the males perish, 
Anspach gave its name to an ancient and the few females which escape the 
principality or margravate, which had a pursuit of their numerous enemies divest 
territory of about 1,300 square miles, with themselves of their wings, and either 
300,000 inhabitants, in the end of the return to established nests or become the 
eighteenth century. The last margrave foundresses of new colonies. The neuters 
sold his possessions in 1791 to Prussia, perform all the labors of the ant-hill or 
It was occupied by the French in 1806, abode of the community; they excavate 
and transferred by Napoleon to Bavaria, the galleries, procure food, and feed the 
The town has manufactures of trim- larvae or young ants, which are destitute 
mings, buttons, straw-wares, etc. Pop. of organs of motion. In fine weather they 
17,555. carefully convey them to the surface for 



Ant 


Antalkali 



their nests. It has been observed that 
some species, like the Sanguinary Ant 
(Formica sanguined), resort to violence 
to obtain working ants of other species 
for their own use, plundering the nests 
of suitable kinds of their larvae and pupae, 
which they carry off to their own nests 
to be carefully reared and kept as slaves. 
In temperate countries male and female 
ants survive, at most, till autumn, or to 
the commencement of cool weather, 
though a very large proportion of them 
cease to exist long previous to that time. 
The neuters pass the winter in a state 
of torpor, and of course require no food. 
The only time when they require food 

is during the 
season of ac¬ 
tivity, when 
they have a 
vast number 
of young to 
feed. Some 
ants of South¬ 
ern Europe 
feed on grain, 
and store it 
up in their 
nests for use 
when required. 
Some species 
have stings as 
weapons, 
others only 
their powerful 
mandibles, or 
an acrid and 
pungent fluid 
(formic acid) 
which they 
can emit. The 
name, white 
ant is given 
to the neurop- 
terous insects otherwise called Termites. 
See Termites. 

Antacid (ant-as'id), an alkali, or any 

2inidLia remedy for acidity ’ in th y e 

stomach. Dyspepsia and diarrhoea are 
the diseases in which antacids are chiefly 
employed. The principal antacids in use 
are magnesia, lime, and their carbonates, 
and the bicarbonates of potash and soda. 
Antaeus (an-te'us), the giant son of 
Poseidon (Neptune) and Ge 
(the Earth), who was invincible so long 
as he was in contact with the earth. 
Heracles (Hercules) grasped him in his 
arms and stifled him suspended in the air. 

Antakieh, Antakia. See Antioch. 

Antalkali (aut-al'ka-li), a substance 
.... _ . which neutralizes an 

alkali, and is used medicinally to coun¬ 
teract an alkaline tendency in the system. 
All true acids have this power. 


the benefit of the sun’s heat, and as at¬ 
tentively carry them to a place of safety 
either when bad weather is threatened 
or the ant-hill is disturbed. In like man¬ 
ner they watch over the safety of the 
nymphs or pupae about to acquire their 
perfect growth. Some communities pos¬ 
sess a special type of neuters, known as 
‘ soldiers,’ from the duties that specially 
fall upon them, and from their powerful 
biting jaws. There is a very considerable 
variety in the materials, size, and form 
of ant-hills, or nests, according to the 
peculiar nature or instinct of the species. 
Most of American ants form nests in 
woods, fields, or gardens, their abodes 


Antananarivo. 

being generally in the form of small 
mounds rising above the surface of the 
ground and containing numerous galleries 
and apartments. Some excavate nests in 
old tree-trunks. Houses built by the 
common wood-ant (Formica rufa) are 
frequently as large as a small hay-cock. 
Some ants live on animal food, very quick¬ 
ly picking quite clean the skeleton of any 
dead animal they may light on. Others 
live on saccharine matter, being very fond 
of the sweet substance, called honey-dew, 
which exudes from the bodies of Aphides, 
or plant-lice. These they sometimes keep 
in their nests, and sometimes tend on the 
plants where they feed; sometimes they 
even . superintend their breeding. By 
stroking the aphides with their antenna 
they cause them to emit the sweet fluid, 
which the ants then greedily sip up. 
Various other insects are looked after by 
ants in a similar manner, or are found in 



















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Antananarivo 


Antelope 


Antananarivo 

agascar, situated in the central province 
of Imgrina; of late years almost entirely 
rebuilt, its old timber houses having been 
replaced by buildings of sun-dried brick on 
European models. It contains two royal 
palaces, immense timber structures, one 
of which has been lately surrounded with 
a massive stone verandah with lofty 
corner towers. It has manufactures of 
metal work, cutlery, silk, etc., and exports 
sugar, soap, and oil. Pop. (1907 ) 69,000. 
An tar (an'tar), an Arabian warrior 
** and poet of the sixth century, 

author of one of the seven Moallakas 
hung up in the Kaaba at Mecca ; hero of 
a romance analogous in Arabic literature 
to the Arthurian legend of the English. 
The romance of Antar, which has been 
called the Iliad of the Desert, is com¬ 
posed in rhythmic prose interspersed with 
fragments of verse, many of which are at¬ 
tributed to Antar himself, and has been 
generally ascribed to Asmai (b. 740 a.d. ; 
d. about 830 a.d.), preceptor to I-Iarun- 
al-Rashid. 


An+arp+ir* (ant-ark'tik), relating to 
xllllctlClll/ the southern pole or to the 
region near it. The Antarctic Circle is a 
circle parallel to the equator and distant 
from the south pole 23° 28', marking the 
area within which the sun does not set 
when on the tropic of Capricorn. The 
Antarctic Circle has been arbitrarily fixed 
on as the limits of the Antarctic Ocean, 
it being the average limit of the pack-ice; 
but the name is often extended to embrace 
a much wider area. The lands within the 
Antarctic region have of late years be¬ 
come far better known than formerly, and 
appear to be largely an elevated region, 
of continental extent. See South Polar 
Expeditions. 

Anf PQ+pr a name given to mammals 
Xllll-Cdtci, var j ous g ener a that prey 

chiefly on ants, but usually confined to the 
genus Myrmecophaga, order Edentata. 



Ant-bear (Myrmecophaga jubata). 


In this genus the head is remarkably 
elongated, the jaws destitute of teeth, and 
the mouth furnished with a long, ex¬ 
tensile tongue covered with glutinous 


saliva, by the aid of which the animals 
secure their insect prey. The eyes are 
very small, the ears short and round, and 
the legs, especially the anterior, very ro¬ 
bust, and furnished with long, compressed, 
acute nails, admirably adapted for break¬ 
ing into the ant-hills. The most remark¬ 
able species is the Myrmecophaga jubata , 
or ant-bear, a native of the warmer parts 
of South America. It is from 4 to 5 
feet in length from the tip of the muzzle 
to the origin of the black bushy tail, which 
is about two feet long. The body is cov¬ 
ered with long hair, particularly along 
the neck and back. It is a harmless and 
solitary animal, and spends most of its 
time in sleep. Some species are adapted 
for climbing trees in quest of the insects 
on which they feed, having prehensile 
tails. All are natives of South America. 
The name ant-eater is also given to the 
pangolins and to the aardvark of Africa. 
The echidna of Australia is sometimes 
called porcupine ant-eater. 

Antecedent <an-t§-se'dent) in gram- 

mar, the noun to which a 
relative or other pronoun refers; as, 
Solomon was the prince who built the 
temple, where the word prince is the 
antecedent of toho. —In logic, that mem¬ 
ber of a hypothetical or conditional prop¬ 
osition which contains the condition, and 
which is introduced by if or some equiva¬ 
lent word or words ; as, if the sun is fixed, 
the earth must move. Here the first and 
conditional proposition is the antecedent , 
the second the consequent. 

Antediluvian (an-te-di-lu'vi-an), be- 
Aiiieuiiuvicui fore the flood or deluge 

of Noah’s time; relating to what hap¬ 
pened before the deluge. In geology the 
term has been applied to organisms, 
traces of which are found in a fossil state 
in formations preceding the Diluvial, 
particularly to extinct animals such as the 
palaeotherium, the mastodon, etc. 
Antplrme (an'te-lop), the name given 

xillbciupe t j ie mem ^ ers 0 f a i ar ge 

family of Ruminant Ungulata or Hoofed 



Antelope—Koodoo (Strepsiceros koodoo ). 


Mammalia, closely resembling the Deer in 
general appearance, but essentially dif¬ 
ferent in nature from the latter animals. 



Antennae 


Anthology 


They are included with the sheep and 

oxen in the family of the Cavicornia 

or ‘ hollow-horned ’ ruminants. Their 

horns, unlike those of the deer, are not 

deciduous, but are permanent; are never 

branched, but are often twisted spirally, 

and may be borne by both sexes. They 

are very numerous and with great variety 

of species in Africa. Well-known species 

are the gazelle, the addax, the eland, the 

koodoo, the gnu, the springbok, the 

chamois of the Alps, the sasin or Indian 

antelope, and the pronghorn of America. 

Anfpnncp (an-ten'e), the name given 
xxiiLCJiiicC tQ the movable j ointed 

organs of touch and hearing attached to 



S 

Antennae. 

1, 1, Filiform Antennae of Cucujo Firefly of 
Brazil (Pyrophorus luminosus). 2, Denticulate 
Antenna; 8, Bipinnate; 4, Lamellicorn; 5, Cla- 
vate; 6, Geniculate; 7, Antenna and Antennule 
of Crustacean. 


the heads of insects, myriapods, etc., and 
commonly called horns or feelers. They 
present a very great variety of forms. 

Antequera ? n £ 

the province of Malaga, a place of some 
importance under the Romans, with a 
ruined Moorish castle. Manufactures of 
woolens, leather, soap, etc. Pop. 31,610. 
Anteros (ant'e-ros), in Greek mythol¬ 
ogy, the god of mutual love. 
According to some, however, Anteros is 
the enemy of love, or the god of antip¬ 
athy ; he was also said to punish those 
who did not return the love of others. 


Anthelion ( aa -the'li-un), pi. Anthlia, 
a luminous ring, or rings, 
seen by an observer, especially in alpine 
and polar regions, around the shadow of 
his head projected on a cloud or fog-bank, 
or on grass covered with dew, 50 or 60 
yards distant, and opposite the sun when 
rising or setting. It is due to the diffrac¬ 
tion of light. 


Anthelminthics, Anthelmin- 

tics (an-thel-min'tiks), a class of 
remedies used to destroy worms 


when lodged in the alimentary canal; 
classed as vermicides or vermifuges, ac¬ 
cording as the object is to kill the worms 
or to expel them by purgation. 

Anthem ( an, them), originally a hymn 
sung in alternate parts; in 
modern usage, a sacred tune or piece of 
music set to w r ords taken from the Psalms 
or other parts of the Scriptures, first 
introduced into church service in Eliza¬ 
beth’s reign ; a developed motet. The an¬ 
them may be for one, two, or any number 
of voices, but seldom exceeds five parts, 
and may or may not have an organ ac¬ 
companiment written for it. 

AntVlPminn (an-the'mi-un), an orna- 
iiinnenilOIL ment or ornamen ted se¬ 
ries used in Greek Roman decoration, 
which is derived from floral forms, more 



Anthemion. 


especially the honeysuckle. It was much 
used for the ornamentation of friezes and 
interiors, for the decoration of fictile 
vases, the borders of dresses, etc. 

Anthemis (an'the-mis), a genus of 
composite plants, compris¬ 
ing the camomile or chamomile. 
Anthemius (an-the'mi-us), a Greek 

XXIltllCIllIUS mathematician and archi _ 

tect of Lydia; designed the Church of St. 
Sophia at Constantinople, and is credited 
with the invention of the 
dome; died a.d. 534. 

An'ther, 5 e “ ale „ »>•*«» 

7 ot the flower; 
that part of the stamen 
which is filled with pollen. 

Anthesteria (an-thes-te'- 

n-a), an 
annual Greek festival held in 
honor of all the gods, more 
particularly of Bacchus or 
Dionysus, and to celebrate a, Ovules, 
the beginning of spring, and Anthers, 
the season when the wine of c ' Sti g ma * 
the previous vintage was considered fit 
for use. 

Anthocyanin (an-tho-si'a-nin), the 

J blue color of flowers, 

a pigment obtained from those petals of 
flowers which are blue by digesting them 
in spirits of wine. 

Anthology ( an -thol'o-gi; Gr. anthos , 

v* a flower, and legein, to 
gather), the name given to several col- 
lections of short poems which have come 












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Anthon 


Anthropometry 


down from antiquity. The first who com¬ 
piled a Greek anthology was Meleager, a 
Syrian, about 60 b.c. He entitled his 
collection, which contained selections from 
forty-six poets besides many pieces of his 
own, the Garland; a continuation of this 
work by Philip of Thessalonica in the age 
of Tiberius was the first entitled Anthol¬ 
ogy. Later collections are that of Con¬ 
stantine Cephales, in the tenth century, 
who made much use of the earlier ones, 
and that of Maximus Pilanudes, in the 
fourteenth century, a monk of Constan¬ 
tinople, whose anthology is a tasteless se¬ 
ries of extracts from the Anthology of 
Cephalas, with some additions. The 
treasures contained in both, increased 
w T ith fragments of older poets, idyls of the 
bucolic poets, the hymns of Callimachus, 
epigrams from monuments and other 
works, have been published in modern 
times as the Greek Anthology. 

A n 'fh nn Charles, an American editor 
xill Lliu , c j ass j ca i school-books, and 

of works intended to facilitate the study 
of Greek and Latin literature; born at 
New York city in 1797, died in 1867. He 
was long a professor in Columbia College, 
New York. 


An'+Tirmxr Henry B., statesman, born 
illl UlUIiy, at Q oven try, Rhode Island, 

in 1815; died Sept. 2, 1884. He grad¬ 
uated at Brown University in 1833; 
edited the Providence Journal 1838-59; 
was governor of Rhode Island 1849-51, 
and U. S. Senator after 1859. In 1869 
and again in 1871 he served as president 
pro tempore of the Senate. 

An'flinnxr Susan B., born at Adams, 
2111 tn0Ii y» Massachusetts, in 1820; 
died in 1906. She was an early and 
eloquent leader in antislavery and 
woman’s rights movement, and also an 
advocate of total abstinence. 

Anfhrmv St., the founder of mon- 
Aiiwiuiijr, astic institutions; born 

near Heraclea, in Upper Egypt, a.d. 251. 
Giving up all his property he retired to 
the desert, where he was followed by a 
number of disciples, who thus formed the 
first community of monks. He died at the 
age of 105.— St. Anthony's Fire , a name 
given to erysipelas. 

AnfTirflppnp (an'thra-sen), a hydro- 
iinilirciceiie ca rhon obtained from 


the heaviest portions of the tar produced 
in the dry distillation of wood and coal. 
It forms small, colorless plates, which 
melt at about 415° F. to a colorless liquid, 
and distills at over 572°. It is insoluble 
in water, but easily so in hot alcohol, 
ether and benzol. Its chemical composi¬ 
tion is C U H 10 , and it is of much com¬ 
mercial importance since it is the start¬ 


ing-point in the manufacture of artificial 
alizarine ( q. v.). 

Anthracite <®? , ‘ hra - s j t >- « laD ™ °. r 

blind coal, a non-bitumi- 
nous coal of a shining luster, approaching 
to metallic, and which burns without 
smoke, with a weak or no flame, and with 
intense heat. It consists of, on an aver¬ 
age, 90 per cent, carbon, 3 hydrogen, and 
5 ash, surpassing bituminous coal in 
hardness and heat-giving properties. It 
has some of the properties of coke or 
charcoal, and, like that substance, repre¬ 
sents an extreme metamorphism of coal 
under the influence of heat of volcanic 
disturbance. It is found in large deposits 
in Pennsylvania and occurs rather spar¬ 
ingly elsewhere, but may prove to be 
abundant in China. 

AntlrraY (an'thraks), a fatal disease 
AIllIlldA to which cattle, horses, 
sheep, and other animals are subject, al¬ 
ways associated with the presence of an 
extremely minute micro-organism ( Bacil¬ 
lus anthracis) in the blood. It frequently 
assumes an epizootic form, and extends 
over large districts, affecting all classes 
of animals which are exposed to the ex¬ 
citing causes. Is is also called splenic 
fever, and is communicable to man, ap¬ 
pearing as carbuncle, malignant pustule, 
or wool-sorter’s disease. 

Anthropolatry t r 

man, a word always employed in re¬ 
proach ; applied by the Apollinarians, who 
denied Christ’s perfect humanity towards 
the orthodox Christians. 

Anthropology ( a p- thr5 -poi'o-ji), the 

" & J science of man and 

mankind, including the study of man’s 
place in nature, that is, of the measure 
of his agreement with and divergence 
from other animals; of his physical struc¬ 
ture and psychological nature, together 
with the extent to which these act and re¬ 
act on each other; and of the various 
tribes of men, determining how these 
may have been produced or modified by 
external conditions, and consequently 
taking account also of the advance or re¬ 
trogression of the human race. It puts 
under contribution all sciences which 
have man for their object, as archaeology, 
comparative anatomy, physiology, psy¬ 
chology, climatology, etc. See Ethnology. 

Anthropometry 

amination of the height, weight, and other 
physical characteristics of the human 
body. It was shown in the British Asso¬ 
ciation Report of 1883 that variations in 
stature, weight, and complexion, existing 
in different districts of the British Islands, 



Anthropomorphism 


Anticosti 


are chiefly due to difference of racial 
origin. The average height of the adult 
males of the principal races or national¬ 
ities of the world may be given as 
follows, but it is acknowledged that more 
numerous measurements might alter some 
of the figures considerably :—Polynesians 
09.33 in.. Patagonians 69 in., negroes of 
the Congo 69 in., Scotch 68.71 in., 
Iroquois Indians 68.28 in., Irish 67.90 
in.. United States (whites) 67.67 in., 
English 67.66 in., Norwegians 67.66 in., 
Zulus 67.19 in., Welsh 66.66 in., Danes 
66.65 in., Dutch 66.62 in., American 
negroes 66.62 in., Hungarians, 66.58 in., 
Germans 66.54 in., Swiss 66.43 in., Bel¬ 
gians 66.38 in., French 66.23 in., Berbers 
66.10 in., Arabs 66.08 in., Russians 66.04 
in., Italians 66 in., Spaniards 65.66 in., 
Esquimaux 65.10 in., Papuans 64.78 in., 
Hindus 64.76 in., Chinese 64.17 in., Poles 
63.87 in., Finns 63.60 in., Japanese 63.11 
in., Peruvians 63 in., Malays 62.34 in., 
Lapps 59.02 in., Bosiesmans 52.78 in. 
General average 65.25 in. Interesting 
results would also be obtained by find¬ 
ing the chest-measurement, length of 
arms and legs, etc., of the different peo¬ 
ples. 

Anthropomorphism 

representation or conception of the Deity 
under a human form, or with human 
attributes and affections. Anthropomor¬ 
phism is founded in the natural inaptitude 
of the human mind for conceiving 
spiritual things except through sensuous 
images, and in its consequent tendency to 
accept such expressions as those of 
Scripture when it speaks of the eye, the 
ear, and the hand of God, of His seeing 
and hearing, of His remembering and for¬ 
getting, of His making man in His own 
image, etc., in a too literal sense. The 
term is also applied to that doctrine which 
attributes to animals mental faculties of 
the same nature as those of man, though 
much lower in degree: strictly called 
hiolooical anthropomorphism , to distin¬ 
guish it from anthropomorphism proper, 
or theological anthropomorphism. 

Anthropophagi <. an-thro-p o f'a-j i), 

1 1 ° the name given to 

those individuals or tribes by whom 
human flesh is eaten: man-eaters, can¬ 
nibals. That there are nations who eat 
the flesh of enemies slain in battle, for 
example the Niam-Niam of Central 
Africa, and till recently the New Zea¬ 
landers, is well known; but there are 
none who make human flesh their usual 
food. The Caribs are said to have been 
cannibals at the time of the Spanish con¬ 
quest of America, and the word ‘can¬ 
nibal ’ is derived from their name. 


An'thllS. See Pipit. 

Anfihp<i (ap-teb), a fortified town and 

11 1 seaport of France, dep. Alpes- 

Maritimes, on the Mediterranean, 11 

miles s. s. w. of Nice; founded ab. 340 

b.c. Traces of a Roman circus and part 

of an aqueduct still remain: and urns, 

lamps, etc., have been found. Pop. 5730. 

Antlplllor (an'ti-kl5r), the name 
xiiilioiiiui given tQ an y chemical gub _ 

stance, such as hyposulphite of sodium, 

employed to remove the small quantity 

of chlorine which obstinately adheres to 

the fibers of the cloth when goods are 

bleached by means of chlorine. 

A nr>li ri <s+ (an'ti-krist), a word oc- 
iinucnribb 0lirring in the first and 

second epistles of St. John, and nowhere 
else in Scripture, in passages having an 
evident reference to a personage real or 
symbolical mentioned or alluded to in 
various other passages both of the Old 
and New Testaments. In every age the 
church has held through all its sects some 
definite expectation of a formidable ad¬ 
versary of truth and righteousness pre¬ 
figured under this name. Thus Roman 
Catholics have found Antichrist in heresy, 
and Protestants in Romanism. In one 
point the sects have generally been agreed, 
namely, in regarding the various intima¬ 
tions on this subject in the Old and New 
Testaments as a homogeneous declaration 
or warning, inspired by the spirit of 
prophecy, of danger to the true religion 
from some disaffection and revolt or¬ 
ganized in the latter days by Satan. 
Most modern critics take a different view 
of the matter. In their view it is the near 
political horizon which suggests the dan¬ 
ger, or contemporary history the sub¬ 
stance of the prophecy; thus the Anti¬ 
christ of Daniel is Antiochus Epiphanes, 
that of St. John Nero, that of St. Paul 
some adversary of Christianity about to 
appear in the time of the Emperor Clau¬ 
dius. 

A-n+iplivnaY (an-ti-klTmaks), a sud- 
iliniCIimdX den declension of a 

writer or speaker from lofty to mean 
thoughts or language, as in the well- 
known lines: 

Next come Dalhousie, the great god of war, 

Lieutenant-colonel to the Earl of Mar. 

Anticlinal , LINE ° R 

axis, in geology, the 
ridge of a wave-like curve made by a 
series of superimposed strata, the strata 
dipping from it on either side as from 
the ridge of a house; a synclinal line 
runs along the trough of such a wave. 

Anticosti (an-ti-kosfti), an island of 
Canada, in the mouth of 



Anticyclone 


Antimony 


the St. Lawrence, 125 miles long by 30 
miles broad. The interior is mountain¬ 
ous and wooded, but there is much good 
land, and it is well adapted for agri¬ 
culture. The fisheries are valuable. The 
population is scanty, however. 



a a a, Anticlinal Line, bb , Synclinal Line. 

Anticyclone (an-ti-sl'kl5n), a phe- 

J nomenon pre sent) ng 

some features opposite to those of a 
cyclone.* It consists of a region of high 
barometric pressure, the pressure being 
greatest in the center with winds flowing 
outwards from the center, and not in¬ 
wards as in the cyclone, accompanied 
with great cold in winter and with great 
heat in summer. 

AtrHrwa (an-tis'i-ra), the name of 
XIIIL two towns of Greece, the 

one in Thessaly, the other in Phocis, 
famous for hellebore, which in ancient 
times was regarded as a specific against 
insanity and melancholy. Hence various 
jocular allusions in ancent writings. 

An+idnfp (an'ti-dot), a medicine to 
XXllllUULC counteract the effects of a 

poison. 

An+ip+am (an-te'tam), a small stream 
iimieiam in the United States which 

falls into the Potomac about 50 miles 
n. w. of Washington ; scene of a battle 
between the Federal and Confederate 
armies, led by McClellan and Lee, on 
Sept. 17, 1862. 

Antif p hri yi (an-ti-fe'brin), or acetan- 

AntiieDnn ILID# a febr if U ge a nd 

antineuralgic derived from aniline, to 
which it is closely allied. It was intro¬ 
duced in 1886, and its cheapness, rapidity 
of action, and reliability brought it 
quickly into use. It is a white powder, 
with burning taste; soluble in alcohol. 

Antifriction (an-ti-frik'shun) metal, 
a name given to va¬ 
rious alloys of tin, zinc, copper, antimony, 
lead, etc., which oppose little resistance 
to motion, with great resistance to the 
effects of friction, so far as concerns 
the wearing away of the surfaces of con¬ 
tact. Babbitt’s metal is composed of 50 
parts tin, 5 antimony, and 1 copper. 
Anfio’O (an'ti-go), a city of Wiscon¬ 
sin txgu sin, the capital of Langlade 
Co., 96 miles n. n. w. of Oshkosh, with 
railroad shops and various manufactures. 
Pop. 7,196. 


Antigone (an-tig'o-ne), in Greek 
xxnugunc mythology> the daughter 

of CEdipus and Jocasta, celebrated for her 

devotion to her father and to her brother 

Polynices, for burying whom against the 

decree of King Creon she suffered death. 

She is heroine of Sophocles’s CEdipus at 

Colonus and his Antigone. 

Antieonish (an-tig-o-nesh'), a town 
xxn tig uiiiMi in the E of Nova 

Scotia, capital of a county of the same 
name ; with good harbor. Pop. 1,526. 

AntlVomm (an-tig'o-nus), one of the 
XXII tig unua generals of Alexander the 

Great, born about 382 b.c. After the 
death of Alexander, Antigonus obtained 
Greater Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphyl- 
ia as his dominion. Ptolemy, Cassan- 
der, and Lysimachus, alarmed by his 
ambition, united themselves against him; 
and a long series of contests ensued in 
Syria, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, and Greece, 
ending in 301 b.c. with the battle of 
Ipsus in Phrygia, in which Antigonus 
was defeated and slain.—A ntigonus 
Gon'atas, son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, 
and grandson of the above, succeeded his 
father in the Kingdom of Macedon and 
all his other European dominions; died 
after a reign of forty-four years b.c. 239. 

A n 110*110 (an-te'ga), one of the Brit- 
XlllllgUd, ish West Indies> the most 

important of the Leeward group; 28 
miles long, 20 broad; area, 108 square 
miles. Discovered by Columbus, 1493. 
Its shores are high and rocky; the sur¬ 
face is varied and fertile. The capital, 
St. John, the residence of the governor 
of the Leeward Islands, stands on the 
shore of a well-sheltered harbor in the 
northwest part of the island. The staple 
articles of export are sugar, molasses, 
rum. Pop. (including Barbuda), 34,971, 
of which 28,000 are negroes. 

Antl-l>hanOTl (leb'a-non), the east- 

2inu .Lebanon ern of the two par . 

allel ranges known as the Mountains of 
Lebanon in Palestine. 

AtvHUpq (an-til'ez, an-tel), another 
XXII lilies n ame for the West Indian 

Islands. 

Antimacassar (an-ti-ma-kas'ar) a 

covering for chairs, 
sofas, couches, etc., made of open cotton 
or worsted work, to preserve them from 
being soiled, as by the oil applied to the 
hair. 

A yi+i marlin* (an-tim'a-kus), a Greek 
Ximimaciiub poet who lived about 

400 b.c., and wrote an epic called the 

Thebais, and a long elegy called Lyde, 

inspired by a mistress of that name; only 

fragments of his writings remain. 

Aritimfmv (an'-ti-mo-ni; chemical 
xiiiiiiiiuny sym gb} from L 8tiUum; 




Antinomianism 


Antioch 


sp. gr. 6.8, atomic wt. 120), a brittle 
metal of a bluish-white or silver-white 
color and a crystalline or laminated 
structure. It melts at 842° F., and burns 
with a bluish-white flame. The mineral 
called stibnite or antimony-glance, is a 
trisulphide (Sb 2 S 3 ), and is the chief ore 
from which the metal is obtained. It is 
found in many places, including France, 
Spain, Hungary, Italy, Canada, Austra¬ 
lia, and Borneo. The metal, or, as it 
was formerly called, the regulus of anti¬ 
mony, does not rust or tarnish when ex¬ 
posed to the air. When alloyed with 
other metals it hardens them, and is 
therefore used in the manufacture of 
alloys, such as Britannia-metal, type- 
metal, and pewter. In bells it renders 
the sound more clear; it renders tin more 
white and sonorous as well as harder, 
and gives to printing types more firrn- 



St. John, Antigua, from the foreground of the Scotch Church. 


ness and smoothness. The salts of 
antimony are very poisonous. The pro¬ 
toxide is the active base of tartar emetic 
and James’s powder, and is justly re¬ 
garded as a most valuable remedy in 
many diseases .—Yellow antimony is a 
preparation of antimony of a deep yel¬ 
low color, used in enamel and porcelain 
painting. It is of various tints, and the 
brilliancy of the brighter hues is not 
affected by foul air. 

Antinomianism (an-ti-n5'mi-an-izm, 
opposition to the 
law ’ ), the name given by Luther to the 
inference drawn by John Agricola from 
the doctrine of justification by faith, that 
the moral law is not binding on Chris¬ 
tians as a rule of life. The term antino- 
mian has since been applied to all doc¬ 


trines and practices which seem to con¬ 
temn or discountenance strict moral obli¬ 
gations. The Lutherans and Calvinists 
have both been charged with antinomian¬ 
ism, the former on account of their doc¬ 
trine of justification by faith, the latter 
both on this ground and that of the doc¬ 
trine of predestination. The charge is, 
of course, vigorously repelled by both. 

Antinomv^ an * ti ’ n5,LQ y)’ the °pp° si - 

U ^ tion of one law or rule to 
another law or rule; in the Kantian 

philosophy, that natural contradiction 
which results from the law of reason, 
when, passing the limits of experience, 
we seek to conceive the complex of ex¬ 
ternal phenomena, or nature, as a 
world or cosmos. 

Antinous te: tin '°' us) v a ./ oung 

Bi thy man whom the ex¬ 

travagant love of Hadrian has immortal- 

i z e d. He 
drowned him¬ 
self in the 
Nile in 122 

a.d., to save 
Hadrian from 
an impending 
catast r o p h e, 
predicted b y 
an oracle un¬ 
less averted 
by the self- 
sacrifice of 
the emperor’s 
most beloved 
friend. Had¬ 
rian set no 
bounds to his 
grief for his 
loss. He gave 
his name to a 
newly-disc o v- 
ered star, 
erected tem¬ 
ples in his 
after him, and 


honor, called a city 
caused him to be adored as a god through¬ 
out the empire. Statues, busts, etc., of 
him are numerous. 

Alltioch. ( ar ?'ti-ok; anciently, Antio- 
chia ), a famous city of 
ancient times, the capital of the Greek 
kings of Syria, on the left bank of the 
Orontes, about 21 miles from the sea, in 
a beautiful and fertile plain; founded 
by Seleucus Nicator in 300 b.c., and 
named after his father Antiochus. In 
Roman times it was the seat of the Syr¬ 
ian governors, and the center of a widely 
extended commerce. It was called the 
‘ Queen of the. East ’ and ‘ The Beauti¬ 
ful.’ Antioch is frequently mentioned in 
the New Testament, and it was here that 
the disciples of our Saviour were first 









Antiochus 


Antiphon 


called Christians (Acts, xi, 26). In the 
first half of the seventh century it was 
taken by the Saracens, and in 1098 by the 
Crusaders. They established the prin¬ 
cipality of Antioch, of which the first 
ruler was Bohemond, and which lasted 
till 1268, when it was taken by the 
Mameluke Sultan of Egynt. In 1516 it 
passed into the hands of the Turks. The 
modern Antioch, or Antakieh, occupies 
but a small portion of the site of the an¬ 
cient Antioch. Pop. about 28,000. Its 
ancient population was estimated at 
400,000. There was another Antioch, in 
Pisidia, at which Paul preached on his 
first missionary journey. 

AivHnnVinc (an-ti'o-kus), a name of 
finilOCIlUb several Graeco-Syrian 

kings of the dynasty of the Seleucidse. 
Antiochus I, called So ter (‘saviour’), 
was son of Seleucus, general of Alexan¬ 
der the Great, and founder of the dynasty. 
He was born about B.c. 324, and suc¬ 
ceeded his father in b. c. 280. During 
the greater part of his 
reign he was engaged in a 
protracted struggle with 
the Gauls, who had crossed 
from Europe, and by whom 
he was killed in battle b.c. 

261.— Antiochus II, sur- 
named Theos (god), suc¬ 
ceeded his father, lost sev¬ 
eral provinces by revolt, 
and was murdered in b.c. 

246 by Laodice, his wife, 
whom he had put away to 
marry Berenice, daughter 
of Ptolemy. —Antiochus 

III, surnamed the Great, grandson of the 
preceding, was born b.c. 242, succeeded in 
b.c. 223. The early part of his reign 
embraced a series of wars against re¬ 
volted provinces and neighboring king¬ 
doms, his expeditions extending to India, 
over Asia Minor, and later irlto Europe, 
where he took possession of the Thracian 
Chersonese. Here he encountered the 
Homans, who had conquered Philip V of 
Macedon, and were prepared to resist 
his further progress. Antiochus gained 
an important adviser in Hannibal, who 
had fled for refuge to his court; but he 
lost the opportunity of an invasion of 
Italy while the Romans were engaged in 
war with the Gauls, of which the Cartha¬ 
ginian urged him to avail himself. The 
Romans defeated him by sea and land, 
and he was finally overthrown by Scipio 
at Mount Sipylus in Asia Minor, b.c. 190, 
and very severe terms were imposed upon 
him. He was killed while plundering a 
temple in Elymais to procure money to 
pay the Romans.— Antiochus IV, called 
Epiphanes , youngest son of the above, is 


chiefly remarkable for his attempt to 
extirpate the Jewish religion, and to 
establish in its place the polytheism of 
the Greeks. This led to the insurrection 
of the Maccabees, by which the Jews 
ultimately recovered their independence. 
He died b.c. 164. 

An+inmiia (&n-te-o-ke'&), a town of 

Antioquia gouth America> in Colom _ 

bia, on the river Cauca; founded in 1542. 
Pop. 9,000. It gives name to a depart¬ 
ment of the republic; area, 22,870 sq. 
miles; pop. about 500,000. It has rich 
ores of the precious metals and dense 
forests. Capital, Medellin. 

Antipasdobaptist 

opposed to the doctrine of infant baptism. 

A n+i-navnc (an-tip'a-ros; ancient Oli- 
Xili llJJcil Ua aros)< one of the Cyclades 

Islands in the Grecian Archipelago, con¬ 
taining a famous stalactitic grotto or 
cave. It lies southwest of Paros, from 
which it is separated by a narrow strait, 




Medal of Antiochus Epiphanes. 

and has an area of 10 square miles, and 

about 700 inhabitants. 

Antinater (an-tip'a-ter), a general 
.tlliupctici an(J fdend of philip of 

Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. 
On the death of Alexander, in 323 b.c., 
the regency of Macedonia was assigned 
to Antipater, who succeeded in establish¬ 
ing the Macedonian rule in Greece on a 
firm footing. He died in b.c. 317 at an 
advanced age. 

Antiphlogistic to 

medicines or methods of treatment that 
are intended to counteract inflammation, 
such as bloodletting, purgatives, dia¬ 
phoretics, etc. 

Anti nil nn (an'ti-fon), a Greek orator, 
born near Athens . founder 
of political oratory in Greece. His ora¬ 
tions are the oldest extant, and he is said 
to have been the first who wrote speeches 
for hire. He was put to death for taking 
part in the revolution of b.c. 411, which 
established the oligarchic government of 
the Four Hundred. 




Antiphon, Antiphony 


Antiseptic 


Antiphon, Antiphony ^YnYti 

song’), in the Christian church a verse 
first sung by a sinele voice, and then re¬ 
peated by the whole choir; or any piece 
to be sung by alternate voices. 

Antipodes (an-tip'o-dez) the name 

R given relatively to people 

or places on opposite sides of the earth, 
so situated that a line drawn from one to 
the other passes through the center of 
the earth and forms a true diameter. 
The longitudes of two such places differ 
by 180°. The difference in their time is 
about twelve hours, and their seasons are 
reversed. 

Antipodes Islands, » maI f r ™? nha ° b ! 

ited islands in the South Pacific Ocean, 
about 460 miles s. e. by E. of New Zea¬ 
land ; so called from being nearly antip¬ 
odal to Greenwich. Antipodes Island 
rises to 1,300 feet, and is largely covered 
with coarse grass; huts have recently 
been fitted up to shelter castaways. 

Antinone (an'ti-pop), the name ap- 
/intipupc pHed tQ thoge who at dif _ 

ferent periods have produced a schism in 
the Roman Catholic Church by opposing 
the authority of the pope, under the pre¬ 
tense that they were themselves popes. 
They have in nearly all cases been the 
creatures of some political power at odds 
with the reigning pontiff over the rela¬ 
tions between temporal and spiritual af¬ 
fairs. They were most frequent in the 
tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
first on account of the factional strifes 
among the Roman nobility, and then of 
the great struggle about investitures be¬ 
tween the popes and the German em¬ 
perors. The longest crisis of this kind 
was that known as the Great Schism 
(1378-1417). Felix V (abd. 1449) was 
the last antipope. 

AntiRVrin (an-ti-pl'rin), a useful 
substitute for quinine, ob¬ 
tained from coal-tar by a complex 
chemical process. It is a white, tasteless 
powder, which reduces the temperature in 
fevers without the discomfort of profuse 
perspiration, which gives it great value 
as a febrifuge. 

Antiquaries ( J an ' t K u ?- r8 I ) ’ Y 08 ! 

u devoted to the study of 

ancient times through their relics, as 
old places of sepulture, remains of an¬ 
cient habitations, early monuments, im¬ 
plements or weapons, statues, coins, med¬ 
als, paintings, inscriptions, books, and 
manuscripts, with the view of arriving 
at a knowledge of the relations, modes of 
living, habits, and general condition of 
the people who created or employed 
them. Societies or associations of anti¬ 


quaries have been formed in all countries 
of European and American civilization. 
One of the oldest of these, the Society of 
Antiquaries of London, was formed in 
1572, revived in 1717, and incorporated 
in 1751. 

Antinnp^ (an-teks'), a term specifi- 

iinuques cally applied t0 the re _ 

mains of ancient art, as statues, paint¬ 
ings, furniture, vases, canoes, and the 
like, and more especially to the works of 
Grecian and Roman antiquity. 

Antirrhinum (an-ti-ri'num), a genus 
AUbirrnillUIU of annual or perennial 

plants of the natural order Scrophu- 
lariaceae, commonly known as snap¬ 
dragon, on account of the peculiarity of 
the blossoms, which, by pressing between 
the finger and thumb, may be made to 
open and shut like a mouth. 

Anticoria (an-te-sa'na), a volcano in 

iinusana the Andes of Ecuador> 35 

miles s. e. by e. of Quito. Whymper, who 
ascended it in 1880, makes its height 
19,335 feet. 

AivHcpiane (an-tish'ans; Gr. anti, 

iiniiscians over against> ski(lf a 

shadow), those who live under the same 
meridian, at the same distance N. and s. 
of the equator, and whose shadows at 
noon consequently are thrown in contrary 
directions. 

Antiscorbutics (an-ti-skor-bu'tiks) 

remedies against 
scurvy. Lemon-juice, ripe fruit, milk, 
salts of potash, green vegetables, pota¬ 
toes, fresh meat, and raw or lightly boiled 
eggs are some of the principal antiscor¬ 
butics. See Scurvy. 

Antiseptic (an-ti-sep'tik; Gr. anti, 
r against, and sepem, to 
rot), an agent by which the putrefac¬ 
tion of vegetable or animal matters is 
prevented or arrested or which prevents 
the growth of septic bacteria. There are 
a great number of substances having this 
preservative property, among which are 
salt, alcohol, vegetable charcoal, creosote, 
corrosive sublimate, tannic acid, sulphu¬ 
rous acid, sulphuric ether, chloroform, 
arsenic, wood-spirit, aloes, camphor, 
benzine, aniline, etc. The packing of 
fish in ice, and the curing of herring and 
other fish with salt, are familiar antisep¬ 
tic processes. The different antiseptics 
act in different ways. The term is ap¬ 
plied in a specific manner to that mode of 
treatment in surgery by which bacteria in 
the air are excluded from wounds on 
whose presence suppuration is known to 
depend. Also applies to the antiseptic 
cleansing of injuries or to skin surfaces 
before operation to remove bacteria pre¬ 
sumed to be present. 



Anti-Slavery 


Antoinette 


Anti-Slaverv a P art y ln the United 
211111 0id < vci y> States before the civil 
war, in opposition to the slavery system. 
See Abolitionists. 

Antispasmodic ( an -ti-spaz-mod'ik), a 

* medicine proper for 

the cure or prevention of spasms and con¬ 
vulsions. Such belongs, to some extent, 
to the class of ether, chloroform, amyl, 
nitrite, etc.; others are narcotics, as 
morphine, hyoscine, etc. 

Anti«;t}ipnp<; (a n-t i s't h e-n e z), a 

iimisxnenes Greek philosopher and 

founder of the school of Cynics, born at 
Athens before b.c. 400. He was a dis¬ 
ciple of Socrates. 

Antistrophe ( g t a r '^ rd ' te) • s e e 

Antitaurns ^;‘;;‘ aw ' rus) - See 

AtvH'+Iiaoic (an-titli'e-sis; opposition), 
Xllil/il/iicaia fig Ure c f speech consist¬ 
ing in a contrast or opposition of words 
or sentiments; as, ‘ When our vices 
leave us, we flatter ourselves we leave 
them; 1 ‘The prodigal robs his heir , the 
miser robs himself .’ 

A n+i+nvin (an-ti-toks'in), a complex 
su fi s tance formed by re¬ 
peatedly injecting the culture # of the 
virulent bacillus of diphtheria into the 
tissues of the horse and taking the serum 
of the blood of the animal from the 
jugular vein after several weeks. The 
serum is preservative and therapeutic 
when applied both to the toxin and also 
against the living virus, hence its name. 
Antitoxin has an immediate effect as an 
antidiphtheritic. Behring was the first to 
use it, and Roux, who established its 
virtues, candidly acknowledges him as its 
discoverer. Its value in diphtheria is 
now so fully established that its ad¬ 
ministration is a routine procedure in 
cases of this disease, and there are vari¬ 
ous other uses to which it is applied. 
A-n-H fra dp a name given to any of 
21111/1 ticUie, tke upper tropical winds 

which move northward or southward in 
the same manner as the trade-winds 
which blow beneath them in the opposite 
direction. These great aerial currents 
descend to the surface after they have 
passed the limits of the trade-winds, and 
from the southwest or west-southwest 
winds of the north temperate, and the 
northwest or west-northwest winds of 
the south temperate zones. # , . 

Antitrinitarians r do 

not accept the doctrine of the divine 
Trinity, or the existence of three persons 
in the Godhead; especially applied to 
those who oppose such a doctrine on 
philosophical grounds, as contrasted with 

13—1 


Unitarians, who reject the doctrine as 
not warranted by Scripture. 

Antitvnp (an'ti-tip), that which is 
^ correlative to a type; by 
theological writers the term is employed 
to denote the reality of which a type is 
the prophetic symbol. 

An fill m (an'ti-um), in ancient Italy, 
one of the most ancient and 
powerful cities of Latium, the chief city 
of the Volsci, and often at war with the 
Romans, by whom it was finally taken 
in 338 b.c. It was 38 miles distant from 
Rome, a flourishing seaport, and became 
a favorite residence of the wealthy Ro¬ 
mans. It was destroyed by the Sara¬ 
cens ; but vestiges of it remain at Porto 
d’Anzo, near which many valuable works 
of art have been found. 

Antivari (an-te'va-re), a seaport 
xxiii/ivci i. town on t b e eastern shore 

of the Adriatic, ceded to Montenegro by 
the Treaty of Berlin (1878). Pop. 
about 2500. 

Anflprc (ant'lerz), the horns of the 
xiniieia deer tribe, or the snags or 
branches of the horns. See Deer. 
Anf-lirm Urn larva of a Neuropterous 
21111 u , } nseC £ (Myrmeleon formi - 
cdrius), which in its perfect state greatly 
resembles a dragon-fly; curious on ac¬ 
count of its 
ingenious me-> 
thod of catch¬ 
ing the in¬ 
sects—chiefly 
ants — on 
which it 
feeds. It 
digs a fun- 
nel-s h a p e d 
hole in the 
dri e s t and 

finest sand p er f ec t insect (Afi/nucZgon/orw 
lt can nnci, i ca riics) and Larva (aut-lion). 
a n d w h e n 

the pit is deep enough, and the sides 
are quite smooth and sloping, it bur¬ 
ies itself at the bottom with only its 
formidable mandibles projecting, and 
waits till some luckless insect stumbles 
over the edge, when it is immediately 
seized, its juices sucked, and the dead 
body jerked from the hole. 

Antofagasta ^ 

Bay of Morena, and a territory of the 
same name taken from Bolivia in 1882. 
The territory has an area of 60,968 sq. 
miles, and a population of 44,OSS. The 
port is connected by railway with the 
silver mines of Caracoles, and exports sil¬ 
ver, copper, cubic niter, etc. Pop. 19,482. 
Antmnptfp (an-twa-net), Marie 

Antomexie (Marie Antolne tte Jo- 







MARIE ANTOINETTE IN THE CONCIERGERIE 

In August. 1793 , the Ex-Queen Consort of France was removed from the Temple Prison to that of 
the Palais de Justice, called La Conciergerie, where she is represented in the picture guarded by 
her jailers. She was removed from this prison to be executed by the guillotine on October 16 , 1793 . 





Antoinette 


Antoninus 


seph Jeanne de Lorraine), Archduchess 
of Austria and Queen of France, the 
youngest daughter of the Emperor Fran¬ 
cis I and of Maria Theresa, was born at 
Vienna, 2d November, 1755; executed at 
Paris, 16th Oct., 1793. She was married 
at the age of fifteen to the dauphin, af¬ 
terwards Louis XVI, but her manners 
were ill suited to the French court, and 
she made many enemies among the high¬ 
est families by her contempt for its cere¬ 
monies, which excited her ridicule. The 
freedom of her manners, indeed, even 
after she became queen, was a cause of 
scandal. The extraordinary affair of the 
diamond necklace, in which the Cardinal 
Louis de Rohan, the great quack Cag- 
liostro, and a certain Countess de La- 
motte were the chief actors, tarnished her 
name and added force to the calumnies 
against her. Though it was proved in 
the examination which she demanded that 
she had never ordered the necklace, her 
enemies succeeded in casting a stigma 
on her, and the credulous people laid 
every public disaster to her charge. 
There is no doubt she had great influence 
over the king, and that she constantly 
opposed all measures of reform. The en¬ 
thusiastic reception given her at the 
guards’ ball at Versailles on 1st October, 
1789, raised the general indignation to 
the highest pitch, and was followed in a 
few days by the insurrection of women, 
and the attack on Versailles. When 
virtually prisoners in the Tuileries it 
was she who advised the flight of the 
royal family in June, 1791, which ended 
in their capture and return. On 10th 
August, 1792, she heard her husband’s 
deposition pronounced by the Legisla¬ 
tive Assembly, and accompanied him to 
the prison in the Temple, where she dis¬ 
played the magnanimity of a heroine and 
the patient endurance of a martyr. In 
January, 1793, she parted with her hus¬ 
band, who had been condemned by the 
Convention; in August she was removed 
to the Conciergerie ; and in October she 
was charged before the revolutionary tri¬ 
bunal with having dissipated the finances, 
exhausted the treasury, corresponded 
with the foreign enemies of France, and 
favored the domestic foes of the country. 
She defended herself with firmness, de¬ 
cision, and indignation; and heard the 
sentence of death pronounced with per¬ 
fect calmness—a calmness which did not 
forsake her when the sentence was car¬ 
ried out the following morning. Her 
son, eight years of age, died shortly 
afterwards, and her daughter was suf¬ 
fered to quit France, and afterwards 
married her cousin, the Duke of Angou- 
16me. 


Antommarchi > • Car - 

lo Francesco, an 
Italian physician, born in Corsica in 
1780, died in Cuba in 1838. He was pro¬ 
fessor of anatomy at Florence when he 
offered himself as physician of Napoleon 
at St. Helena. Napoleon at first received 
him with reserve, but soon admitted him 
to his confidence, and testified his satis¬ 
faction with him by leaving him a leg¬ 
acy of 100,000 francs. On his return 
to Europe he published the Derniers Mo¬ 
ments de Napoleon (two vols., 8vo, 
1823). 

AntnYiplli (an-to-nel'le), Giacomo, 
xxniuiicni cardinal, born 1806 , died 
1876. He was educated at the Grand 
Seminary of Rome, where he attracted 
the attention of Pope Gregory XVI, who 
appointed him to several important of¬ 
fices. On the accession of Pius IX, in 
1846, Antonelli was raised to the dignity 
of cardinal deacon; two years later he 
became president and minister of foreign 
affairs, and in 1850 was appointed sec¬ 
retary of state. During the sitting of the 
(Ecumenical Council (1869-70) he was 
a prominent champion of the papal inter¬ 
est. He strongly opposed the assumption 
of the united Italian crown by Victor 
Emanuel. 

An+nriplln (an-to-nel'lo), of Messina, 

Antoneuo v an Italian painter who 

died at the end of the sixteenth century, 
and is said to have introduced oil-paint¬ 
ing into Italy (at Venice), having been 
instructed in it by John Van Eyck. 

Antoninus (Rn ; t °; nI ' n « us) v,- lTINEE ' 

ary of. See Itinerary. 

Antoni'nus, J Iar 7 c . us Aurelius. See 

" A nr phi i, & 


* Aurelius. 

Antoni'nus, ° F - 


a barrier 
erected by the Romans 
in Britain across the isthmus between 
the Forth and the Clyde, in the reign 
of Anto n i n u s 
Pius. Its west¬ 
ern extremity 
was at or near 
Dunglass Castle, 
its eastern at 
Carridon, and 
the whole length 
of it exceeded 
27 miles. It 
was constructed 
a.d. 140 by Lol- 
lius Urbicus, the 
imperial legate, 
and consisted of 
a ditch 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep, and 
a rampart of stone and earth on the 
south side 24 feet thick and 20 feet in 
height. It was strengthened at each end 
and along its course by a series of forts 



Coin of Antoninus Pius. 



Antoninus Pius 


Antonomasia 


and watch-towers. It may still be traced 
at various points, and is commonly 
known as Graham's Dyke. 

Antnni'rmsi Pins Titus Aurelius 

Antoni nus rius, Fulvus< Roman 

emperor, was born at Lavinium, near 
Rome, a.d. 8 G, died a.d. 161. In a.d. 120 
he became consul, and he was one of 
the four persons of consular rank among 
whom Hadrian divided the supreme ad¬ 
ministration of Italy. He then went as 
proconsul to Asia, and after his return to 
Rome became more and more the object 
of Hadrian’s confidence. In a.d. 138 he 
was selected by that emperor as his suc¬ 
cessor, and the same year he ascended the 
throne. The persecutions of the Chris¬ 
tians he speedily abolished. He carried 
on but a few wars. In Britain he ex¬ 
tended the Roman dominion, and by 
raising a new wall (see preceding art.) 
put a stop to the invasions of the Piets 
and Scots. The senate gave him the sur¬ 
name Pius, that is, dutiful or showing 
filial affection, because to keep alive the 
memory of Hadrian he had built a temple 
in his honor. He was succeeded by Mar¬ 
cus Aurelius, his adopted son. 

An+rvmnc (an-to'ni-us), Marcus 
.tilllUIUUb (Mark Antony). Roman 

triumvir, born 83 b.c., was connected 
with the family of Caesar by his mother, 
Debauchery and prodigality marked his 
youth. To escape his creditors he went 
to Greece in 58, and from thence fol¬ 
lowed the consul Gabinius on 4 a cam¬ 
paign in Syria as commander of the 
cavalry. He served in Gaul under Caesar 
in 52 and 51. In 50 he returned to 
Rome to support the interests of Caesar 
against the aristocratical party headed 
by Pompey, and was appointed tribune. 
When war broke out between Caesar and 
Pompey, Antony led reinforcements to 
Caesar in Greece, and in the battle of 
Pharsalia he commanded the left wing. 
He afterwards returned to Rome with 
the appointment of master of the horse 
and governor of Italy (47). In b.c. 44 
he became Caesar’s colleague in the con¬ 
sulship. Soon after Caesar was assas¬ 
sinated, and Antony would have shared 
the same fate had not Brutus stood up 
in his behalf. Antony, by the reading 
of Caesar’s will, and by the oration which 
he delivered over his body, excited the 
people to anger and revenge, and the 
murderers were obliged to flee. After- 
several quarrels and reconciliations with 
Octavianus, Caesar’s heir (see Augustus ), 
Antony departed to Cisalpine Gaul, which 
province had been conferred upon him 
against the will of the senate. But Ci¬ 
cero thundered against him in his famous 
Philippics; the senate declared him a 


public enemy, and entrusted the conduct 
of the war against him to Octavianus 
and the consuls Hirtius and Pansa. Af¬ 
ter a campaign of varied fortunes An¬ 
tony fled with his troops over the Alps, 
Here he was joined by Lepidus, who 
commanded in Gaul, and through whose 
mediation Antony and Octavianus were 
again reconciled. It was agreed that 
the Roman world should be divided 
among the three conspirators, who were 
called triumvirs. Antony was to take 
Gaul; Lepidus, Spain; and Octavianus, 
Africa and Sicily. They decided upon 
the proscription of their mutual enemies, 
each giving up his friends to the others, 
the most celebrated of the victims de¬ 
manded by Antony being Cicero the ora¬ 
tor. Antony and Octavianus departed 
in 42 for Macedonia, where the united 
forces of their enemies, Brutus and Cas¬ 
sius, formed a powerful army, which 
was, however, speedily defeated at Phil¬ 
ippi. Antony next visited Athens, and 
thence proceeded to Asia. In Cilijbia he 
ordered Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, to 
apologize for her insolent behavior to 
the triumviri. She appeared in person, 
and her charms fettered him forever. 
He followed her to Alexandria, where he 
bestowed not even a thought upon the 
affairs of the world, till he was aroused 
by a report that hostilities had commenced 
in Italy between his own relatives and 
Octavianus. A short war followed, which 
was decided in favor of Octavianus be¬ 
fore the arrival of Antony in Italy. A 
reconciliation was effected, which was 
sealed by the marriage of Antony with 
Octavia, the sister of Octavianus. A 
new division of the Roman dominions 
was now made (in 40), by which Antony 
obtained the East, Octavianus the West. 
After his return to Asia Antony gave 
himself up entirely to Cleopatra, assum¬ 
ing the style of an eastern despot, thus 
alienating many of his adherents and 
embittering public opinion against him 
at Rome. At length war was declared 
at Rome against the Queen of Egypt, 
and Antony was deprived of his consul¬ 
ship and government. Each party as¬ 
sembled its forces, and Antony lost, in 
the naval battle at Ac-tium (b.c. 31), 
the dominion of the world. He followed 
Cleopatra to Alexandria, and on the 
arrival of Octavianus his fleet and cav¬ 
alry deserted, and his infantry was de¬ 
feated. Deceived by a false report which 
Cleopatra had disseminated of her death, 
he fell upon his own sword (b.c. 30). 

Antonomasia (an-to : no-ma'zi-a), in 

rhetoric, the use of the 
name of some office, dignity, profession, 
science, or trade instead of the true name 




Antony 


Antwerp 


of the person, as when his majesty is 
used for a king, his lordship for a noble¬ 
man ; or when, instead of Aristotle, we 
say, the philosopher; or, conversely, the 
use of a proper noun instead of a com¬ 
mon noun; as, a Solomon for a wise 
man. 

Antony, -^ ARK - See Antonins, Mar- 

Antony, St. See Anthony. 

Antrim (an'trim), a county of Ire- 
A land, province of Ulster, in 
the northeast of the island; area, 1,191 
sq. miles, of which about a third is 
arable. The eastern and northern dis¬ 
tricts are comparatively mountainous, 
with tracts of heath and bog, but no part 
rises to a great height. The principal 
rivers are the Lagan and the Bann, 
which separate Antrim from Down and 
Londonderry, respectively. The general 
soil of the plains and valleys is strong 
loam. Flax, oats, and potatoes are the 
principal agricultural produce. Cattle, 
sheep, swine, and goats are extensively 
reared. There are salt-mines and beds 
of iron-ore, which is worked and ex¬ 
ported. A range of basaltic strata 
stretches along the northern coast, of 
which the celebrated Giant’s Causeway 
is the most remarkable portion. Linen 
and cotton-spinning and weaving are the 
staple manufactures. The principal 
towns are Belfast, Ballymena, and Larne. 
Many of the inhabitants are Presbyte¬ 
rians, being the descendants of Scottish 
immigrants of the seventeenth century. 
The county sends four members to Par¬ 
liament. Pop. 461,250. The town of 
Antrim, at the north end of Lough 
Neagh, is a small place with a pop. of 
2 , 020 . 

A-nf-fTirncTi a name given to certain 
iint inrusn, passerine or per ching 

birds having resemblance to the thrushes 
and supposed to feed largely on ants. 
They all have longish legs and a short 
tail. The ant-thrushes of the Old World 
belong to the genus Pitta. They inhabit 
southern and southeastern Asia and the 
Eastern Archipelago, and are birds of 
brilliant plumage. The New World ant- 
thrushes belong to South America, and 
live among close foliage and bushes. 
Some of them are called ant-shrikes and 
ant-wrens. They belong to several gen¬ 
era. 

Anfwprn (ant'werp; Dutch and Ger. 
Antwerp AntwerpeUf French, An¬ 
vers), the chief port of Belgium, and the 
capital of a province of the same name, 
on the Scheldt, about 50 miles from the 
open sea. It is strongly fortified, being 
completely surrounded on the land side 


by a semicircular inner line of fortifi¬ 
cations, the defenses being completed 
by an outer line of forts and outworks. 
The cathedral, with a spire 400 feet high, 



Antwerp Cathedral, from the Egg Market. 


one of the largest and most beautiful 
specimens of Gothic architecture in Bel¬ 
gium, contains Rubens’s celebrated mas¬ 
terpieces, the Descent from the Cross, 
the Elevation of the Cross, and The 
Assumption. The other churches of note 
are St. James’s, St. Andrew’s, and St. 
Paul’s, all enriched with paintings by 
Rubens, Vandyck, and other masters. 
Among the other edifices of note are the 
exchange, the town-hall, the palace, the¬ 
ater, academy of the fine arts, picture 
and sculpture galleries, etc. The har¬ 
bor accommodation is extensive and ex¬ 
cellent, new docks and quays having 
been built in recent years. The shipping 
trade has greatly advanced, and is now 
very large, the goods being largely in 
transit. There are numerous and varied 
industries. Antwerp is mentioned as 
early as the eighth century, and in the 
eleventh and twelfth it had attained a 
high degree of prosperity. In the six¬ 
teenth century it is said to have had a 
pop. of 200,000. The wars between the 
Netherlands and Spain greatly injured 
its commerce, which was almost ruined 
by the closing of the navigation of the 













Anubis 


Apaches 


Scheldt in accordance with the peace of 
Westphalia (1648). It was only in the 
19th century that its prosperity revived. 
Population (1905), 921,949.—The prov¬ 
ince consists of a fertile plain 1,093 
square miles in area, and has a popula¬ 
tion of 800,000. 

Anubis ( a ' n u'bis; Anepo on the mon¬ 
uments) , 
one of the deities of 
the ancient Egyp¬ 
tians, the son of 
Osiris by Isis. The 
Egyptian sculptures 
represent him with 
the head, or under 
the form, of a 
jackal, with long, 
pointed ears. His 
office was to con¬ 
duct the souls of 
the dead from this 
world to the next, 
and in the lower 
world he weighed 
the actions of the 
deceased previous to 
their admission to 
the presence of Osi¬ 
ris. Anubis. 

Ammsbabr (a-nop'shar), a town of 
xxil lljJMidlii Hindustan> N w Prov _ 

inces, on the Ganges, 75 miles S.E. of 
Delhi, a resort of Hindu pilgrims who 
bathe in the Ganges. Pop. about 10,- 
000 . 

Anura or A n oura (a-nu'ra; Gr. a , 
* negative, oura, a tail), an order 
of Batrachians which lose the tail when 
they reach maturity, such as the frogs 
and toads. 

Anuradhapura. See Anarajapura. 

AllUS ( a,QUS )> the opening at the low¬ 
er or posterior extremity of the 
alimentary canal through which the ex¬ 
crement or waste products of digestion 
are expelled. 

Anvil an instrument on 

which pieces of metal are laid 
for the purpose of being hammered. The 
common smith’s anvil is generally made 
of seven pieces, namely, the core or 
body; the four corners for the purpose 
of enlarging its base; the projecting end, 
which contains a square hole for the re¬ 
ception of a set or chisel to cut off 
pieces of iron; and the beak or conical 
end, used for turning pieces of iron into 
a circular form, etc. These pieces are 
each separately welded to the core and 
hammered so as to form a regular sur¬ 
face with the whole. When the anvil 
has received its due form, it is faced with 
steel, and is then tempered in cold water. 



The smith’s anvil is generally placed 
loose upon a wooden block. The anvil 
for heavy operations, such as the forging 
of ordnance and shafting, consists of a 
huge iron block deeply embedded, and 
resting on piles of masonry. 

Anville D ’» J EAN Baptiste Bourgui- 
’ gnon, (ja$ bap-test bor-ge- 
nyon dari-vel), a celebrated French geog¬ 
rapher, born in 1697, died in 1782; pub¬ 
lished a great number of maps and writ¬ 
ings illustrative of ancient and modern 
geography. 

Anzin ( a £‘ za b)> a town of France, 
department of Nord, about 1 
mile northwest from Valenciennes, in 
the center of an extensive coal-field, with 
blast-furnaces, forges, rolling-mills, foun¬ 
dries, etc. Pop. (1906) 14,077. 

Aonia (a-on'i-a), in ancient geography 
a name for part of Bceotia 
in Greece, containing Mount Helicon and 
the fountain Aganippe, both haunts of 
the muses. 


Aorist (a'o-rist), the name given to 
one of the tenses of the verb 
in some languages (as the Greek), which 
expresses indefinite past time. 

Aorta (a-or'ta), in anatomy, the great 
artery or trunk of the arterial 
system, proceeding from the left ventri¬ 
cle of the heart, and giving origin to all 
the arteries except the pulmonary. It 
first rises towards the top of the breast¬ 
bone, when it is called the ascending 
aorta; then makes a great curve, called 
the transverse or great arch of the aorta, 
whence it gives off branches to the head 


and upper extremities; thence proceed¬ 
ing towards the lower extremities, under 
the name of the descending aorta , it 
gives off branches to the trunk; and 
finally divides into the two iliacs, which 
supply the pelvis and lower extremities. 
Aosta ( a ' os 'ta; anc. Augusta Preto¬ 
ria), a town of North Italy, 50 
miles N. n. w. of Turin, on the Dora- 
Baltea, with an ancient triumphal arch, 
remains of an amphitheater, etc. Pop. 
7875. 

Aoildad (a'ou-dad), the Ammotragus 
trageldphus, a quadruped al¬ 
lied to the sheep, most closely to the 
moufflon, from which, however, it may 
be easily distinguished by the heavy 
mane, commencing at the throat and fall¬ 
ing as far as the knees. It is a native 
of North Africa, inhabiting the loftiest 
and most inaccessible precipices. 
Apaches ( a -P a 'chez), a warlike race 
. . °* Indians formerly inhab¬ 

its the more unsettled parts of the 
United States adjoining Mexico, and also 
the north of Mexico. They supported 
themselves by the chase and plunder and 













APACHE INDIAN CAMP 


The Apaches, formerly one of 


the most powerful and warlike of the Indian tribes, are now confined to 







Apanage Apennines 


put their prisoners to death with fright- Apelles ( a ‘Pel'ez), the most famous of 
ful tortures. After defying the U. S. ° the painters of ancient Greece 

army for many years they were finally and of antiquity, was born in the fourth 
subdued by Generals Crook and Miles, century b.c., probably at Colophon, 
and are now on a reservation in Arizona, Ephorus of Ephesus was his first teacher, 
except about 300 held prisoners in Okla- but attracted by the renown of the Si- 
homa. They have proved good workers cyonian school he went and studied at 
on the irrigation dams in Arizona. Sicyon. In the time of Philip he went 

Anailflire tap'a-naj), an allowance to Macedonia, and there a close friend- 
o which the younger princes ship between him and Alexander the 
of a reigning house in some European Great was established. The most ad- 
countries receive from the revenues of mired of his pictures was that of Venus 
the country, generally with a grant of rising from the sea and wringing the 
public domains, that they may be en- water from her dripping locks. His por- 
abled to live in a manner becoming their trait of Alexander with a thunderbolt in 
rank. his hand was no less celebrated. His 

ADartment ( a 'P a rt'ment) HOUSES, renown was at its height about B.c. 330, 
r houses built to accom- and he died about the end of the century, 

modate a number of families each in its Among the anecdotes told of Apelles is 
own set of rooms, which form a separate the one which gave rise to the Latin 
dwelling with an entrance of its own. proverb, ‘ Ne sutor supra crepidam ’— 
The term is chiefly used in America, ‘ Let not the shoemaker go beyond his 
where such dwellings are of compara- shoe.’ Having heard a cobbler point out 
tively recent introduction ; but houses of an error in the drawing of a shoe in one 
this kind have long been built in Europe, 0 f his pictures he corrected it, where- 
though in London, as in the United upon the cobbler took upon him to criti- 
States, they are still somewhat of a nov- c ise the leg, and received from the artist 
elty. In New York and other American the famous reply. 

cities there are now great blocks of such A -npmiinf^ (ap'e-ninz; Latin, Mons 
houses. xxpciuniic& Apenninus ), a prolonga- 

Anatite ( a P ,a ‘tR), a translucent but tion of the Alps, forming the ‘backbone 
^ seldom transparent mineral, of Italy.’ Beginning at Savona, on the 

which crystallizes in a regular six-sided Gulf of Genoa, the Apennines traverse 
prism, usually terminated by a truncated the whole of the peninsula and also 
six-sided pyramid. It passes through cross over into Sicily, the Strait of Mes- 
various shades of color, from white to sina being regarded merely as a gap in 
yellow, green, blue, and occasionally red, the chain. The average height of the 
scratches fluorspar but is scratched by mountains composing the range is about 
felspar, and has a specific gravity of 4,000 feet, and nowhere do they reach the 
about 3.5. It is a compound of phos- limits of perpetual snow, though some 
phate of.lime w r ith fluoride and chloride summits exceed 9,000 feet in height, 
of calcium. It occurs principally in Monte Corno, called also Gran Sasso 
primitive rocks and in veins, extensive d’ltalia (Great Rock of Italy), which 
deposits being found in all parts of the rises among the mountains of the Ab- 
world. It is now largely utilized as ruzzi, is the loftiest of the chain, rising 
a source of artificial phosphate man- to the height of 9,541 feet, Monte Majella 
ures. (9,151) being next. Monte Gargano, 

Ai)G <ap)* a common name of a number which juts out into the Adriatic from the 
of quadrumanous animals inhabit- ankle of Italy, is a mountainous mass 
ing the Old World (Asia and the Asiatic upwards of 5,000 feet high, completely 
islands and Africa), and including a separated from the main chain. On the 
variety of species. The word ape is Adriatic side the mountains descend more 
applied indiscriminately to all quadru- abruptly to the sea than on the western 
manous mammals, or specifically to the or Mediterranean side, and the streams 
anthropoid or man-like monkeys. This are comparatively short and rapid. On 
family includes the chimpanzee, gorilla, the western side are the valleys of the 
orang-outang, and gibbon, and has been Arno, Tiber, Barigliano, and Volturno, 
divided into three genera, Troglodytes , the largest rivers that rise in the Apen- 
Simia, and Ilylobdtes. See Chimpanzee , nines, and the only ones of importance 
Gibbon , Gorilla, Orang , etc. in the peninsular portion of Italy. They 

Aueldoorn (^Pel'dorn), a town of consist almost entirely of limestone rocks, 
B Holland, prov i n c e of and are exceedingly rich in the finest 

Guelderland, 17 miles north of Arnhem; marbles. On the south slopes volcanic 
manufactures paper, morocco leather, masses are not uncommon. Mount Ve- 
and copper plates. Pop. 25,761. suvius, the only active volcano on the 



Apenrade 


Aphrodite 


continent of Europe, is an instance. 
The lower slopes are well clothed with 
vegetation; the summits are sterile and 
bare. 

A -npnradp (a'pen-rii-de), a seaport of 

Apenraae Prussia> in schieswig-iioi- 

stein, on a fiord of the Little Belt, beau¬ 
tifully situated, and carrying on a con¬ 
siderable fishing and seafaring trade. 
Pop. 5,952. 

A-npripnt (a-pe'ri-ent), a medicine 
which, in moderate doses, 
gently but completely opens the bowels: 
examples, castor-oil, Epsom salts, senna, 
etc. 

Anp+alnn«i (a-pet'a-lus), a botanical 

Apetaious term applied to flowers or 

flowering-plants which are destitute of 
petals or corolla. 

Aphaniptera<»f-n/p^f e >’ £.£ 

composed of the different species of fleas. 
See Flea. 

AiVhptiia (a-fa'si-a; Gr. a, not, and 
A* phasis , speaking), in pathol¬ 

ogy, a symptom of certain morbid con¬ 
ditions of the nervous system in which 
the patient loses the power of expressing 
ideas by means of words, or loses the 
appropriate use of words, the vocal or¬ 
gans the while remaining intact and the 
intelligence sound. There is sometimes 
an entire loss of words as connected with 
ideas, and sometimes only the loss of a 
few. In one form of the disease, called 
aphemia , the patient can think and write, 
but cannot speak; in another, called 
agraphia , he can think and speak, but 
cannot express his ideas in writing. In 
a great majority of cases, where post¬ 
mortem examinations have been made, 
morbid changes have been found in the 
left frontal convolutions of the brain. 

Aivhelion (a-fe'li-on; Gr. apo, from, 
xxpnciiuii and hmo8 ' the gun)> that 

part of the orbit of the earth or any 
other planet in which it is at the point 
remotest from the sun. 

Aphemia (a-fe'mi-a). See Aphasia. 

Aphides (af'i-dez). See Aphis. 

At)his ( a ^ s )> a genus of insects 
B called plant-lice of the order 
Hemiptera, the type of the family Aphi¬ 
des. The species are very numerous and 
destructive. The A. roses lives on the 
rose; the A. fabce on the bean; the A. 
humuli is injurious to the hop, the A. 
granaria to cereals, the A. lanigera or 
woolly aphis equally so to apple trees. 
The aphides are furnished with an in¬ 
flected beak, and feelers longer than the 
thorax. In the same species some indi¬ 
viduals have four erect wings and others 


are entirely without wings. The feet 
are of the ambulatory kind, and the ab¬ 
domen usually ends in two horn-like tubes, 
from which is ejected the substance called 



Aphides. 

Wheat Plant-louse ( Aphis granaria).— 1,2, Male, 
enlarged and natural size. 3, 4, Wingless Fe¬ 
male, enlarged and natural size. 

honey-dew, a favorite food of ants. (See 
Ant.) The aphides illustrate partheno¬ 
genesis ; hermaphrodite forms produced 
from eggs produce viviparous wingless 
forms, which again produce others like 
themselves, and thus multiply during 
summer, one individual giving rise to 
millions. Winged sexual forms appear 
late in autumn, the females of which, 
being impregnated by the males, produce 
eggs. 

AnTirmia (a-fo'ni-a; Gr. a, not, and 
^ phond, voice), in pathology, 

the greater or less impairment or the 
complete loss of the power of emitting 
vocal sound. The slightest and less 
permanent forms often arise from ex¬ 
treme nervousness, fright, and hysteria. 
Slight forms of structural aphonia are 
of a catarrhal nature, resulting from 
more or less congestion and tumefaction 
of the mucous and submucous tissues of 
the larynx and adjoining parts. Severer 
cases are frequently occasioned by se¬ 
rous infiltration into the submucous tis¬ 
sue, with or without inflammation of the 
mucous membrane of the larynx and of 
its vicinity. The voice may also be af¬ 
fected in different degrees by inflam¬ 
matory affections of the fauces and ton¬ 
sils ; by tumors in these situations; by 
morbid growths pressing on or implicat¬ 
ing the larynx or trachea; by aneurisms; 
and most frequently by chronic laryn¬ 
gitis and its consequences, especially 
thickening, ulceration, etc. 

Anhorism (af'o-rizm), a brief, sen- 

Xl^liUl 13111 tentioug saying> in wWch 

a comprehensive meaning is involved, as 
‘ Familiarity breeds contempt; ’ ‘ Neces¬ 
sity has no law.’ 

Aphrodisiacs (a-fro-ditf-aks), roedi- 

r ones or food believed 

to be capable of exciting sexual desire. 
Aphrodite ( af ;ro-di'te), the goddess 
r of love among the Greeks; 




Aphthae 


Aplacental 


usually regarded as equivalent to the 
Roman Venus. A festival called Aphro- 
disia was celebrated to her in various 
parts of Greece, but especially in Cyprus. 
See Venus. 

A-nTifhsp (af'the), a disease occurring 
piii/iicc especially in infants, but oc¬ 
casionally seen in old persons, and con¬ 
sisting of small white ulcers upon the 
tongue, gums, inside of the lips, and 
palate, resembling particles of curdled 
milk: commonly called thrush or milk- 
thrush. 


A'pia 


(a'pe-a), the chief place and 
trading center of the Samoan Is¬ 
lands, on the north side of the island of 
Upolu, capital of the German part of 
the group. 

A'm’nrv (a'pi-a-ri; L. apis , a bee), a 
^ -r * place for keeping bees. The 
apiary should be well sheltered from 
strong winds, moisture, and the extremes 
of heat and cold. The hives should face 
the south or southeast, and should be 
placed on shelves 2 feet above the ground, 
and about the same distance from each 
other. As to the form of the hives and 
the materials of which they should be 
constructed there are great differences of 
opinion. The old dome-shaped straw 
skep is still in general use among the 
cottagers of Great Britain. Its cheap¬ 
ness and simplicity of construction are 
in its favor, while it is excellent for 
warmth and ventilation; but it has the 
disadvantage that its interior is closed 
to inspection, and the honey can only be 
got out by stupefying the bees with the 
smoke of the common puff-ball, by chlor¬ 
oform, or by fumigating with sulphur, 
which entails the destruction of the 
swarm. Wooden hives of square box-like 
form have now gained general favor 
among bee-keepers. They usually con¬ 
sist of a large breeding chamber below 
and two sliding removable boxes called 
supers above for the abstraction of honey 
without disturbing the contents of the 
main chamber. It is of great importance 
that the apiary should be situated in 
the neighborhood of good feeding grounds, 
such as gardens, clover-fields, or heath- 
covered hills. In the early spring slow 
and continuous feeding (a few ounces of 
syrup each day) will stimulate the queen 
to deposit her eggs, by which means the 
colony is rapidly strengthened and throws 
off early swarms. New swarms may make 
their appearance as early as May and as 
late as August, but swarming usually 
takes place in the intervening months. 

A Til* ni 11 q (a-pish'e-us), Marcus Ga- 
xijjiuj. BIUSj a Roman epicure in the 

time of Augustus and Tiberius, who, hav¬ 
ing exhausted his vast fortune on the 


gratification of his palate, and having 
only about $400,000 left, poisoned himself 
that he might escape the misery of plain 
diet. The book of cookery published un¬ 
der the name of Apicius was written 
by one Caelius, and belongs to a much 
later date. 

Aninn (a'pi-on), a Greek grammarian, 
born in Egypt, lived in the 
reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Clau¬ 
dius, a.d. 15-54, and went to Rome to 
teach grammar and rhetoric. Among his 
works, one or two fragments only of 
which remain, was one directed against 
the Jews, which was replied to by Jose¬ 
phus. 

At)i0S ( a, pi" os )> a genus of leguminous 
xxjjiuD climbing plants, producing edi¬ 
ble tubers on underground shoots. An 
American species ( A. tuherosa) has been 
used as a substitute for the potato, but 
its tubers, though numerous, are small. 
At)is ^ a P^ s )» a bull to which divine 
honors were paid by the ancient 
Egyptians, who regarded him as a sym¬ 
bol of Osiris. At Memphis he had a 
splendid residence, containing extensive 
walks and courts for his entertainment, 
and he was waited upon by a large train 



Apis. 


of priests, who looked upon his every 
movement as oracular. He was not suf¬ 
fered to live beyond twenty-five years, 
being secretly killed by the priests and 
thrown into a sacred well. Another bull, 
characterized by certain marks, as a black 
color, a triangle of white on the fore¬ 
head, a white crescent-shaped spot on 
the right side, etc., was selected in his 
place. His birthday was annually cele¬ 
brated, and his death was a season of 
public mourning. 

A'pis, a genus of insects. See Bee. 


Anilim ( a, pi _um )» a genus of umbellif- 
XljJluin erous pi an t S) including celery. 

A -nl a PPTI ta 1 (ap-la-sen'tal) * a term ap- 
iipidceiitdi plied to those mammals 

in which the young are destitute of a 
placenta. The aplacental mammals com- 





Aplanatic 


Apocrypha 


prise the Monotremata and Marsupialia, 
the two lowest orders of mammals, in¬ 
cluding the duck-mole (ornithorhynchus), 
the porcupine ant-eater, kangaroo, etc. 
See Marsupialia and Monotremata. 

Aplanatic (ap-la-nat'ik), in optics, 
* a term specifically ap¬ 

plied to reflectors, lenses, and combina¬ 
tions of them capable of transmitting 
light without spherical aberration. An 
aplanatic lens is a lens constructed of 
different media to correct the effects of 
the unequal refrangibility of the different 
rays. 

Aplysia (a-pll'si-a). See Sea-liare. 


Aoocalvose (a-pok'a-lips; Gr. apoka- 

* J " lypsis, a revelation), the 
name frequently given to the last book 
of the New Testament, in the English 
version called The Revelation of St. John 
the Divine. It is generally believed that 
the Apocalypse was written by the apos¬ 
tle John in his old age (95-97 a.d.) in 
the Isle of Patmos, whither he had been 
banished by the Roman Emperor Domi- 
tian. Anciently its genuineness was 
maintained by Justin Martyr, Irenseus, 
Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and 
many others; while it was doubted by 
Dionysius of Alexandria, Cyril of Jeru¬ 
salem, Chrysostom, and, nearer our own 
times, by Luther and a majority of the 
eminent German commentators. The 
Apocalypse has been explained differ¬ 
ently by almost every writer who has 
ventured to interpret it, and has fur¬ 
nished all sorts of sects and fanatics with 
quotations to support their creeds or pre¬ 
tensions. The modern interpreters may 
be divided into three schools—namely, 
the historical school, who hold that the 
prophecy embraces the whole history of 
the church and its foes from the time of 
its writing to the end of the world; the 
Prceterists, who hold that the whole or 
nearly the whole of the prophecy has 
been already fulfilled, and that it refers 
chiefly to the triumph of Christianity 
over Paganism and Judaism; and the 
Futurists, who throw the whole proph¬ 
ecy, except the first three chapters, for¬ 
ward upon a time not yet reached by 
the church—a period of no very long 
duration, which is immediately to pre¬ 
cede Christ’s second coming. 

Apocalyptic (a-pok-a-lip'tik) Num- 

r ber, the mystic number 

666 found in Rev., xiii, 18. As early as 
the second century ecclesiastical writers 
found that the name Antichrist was indi- 
cated by the Greek characters expressive 
of this number. By Irenaeus the word 
Lateinos was found in the letters of the 
number, and the Roman empire was 


therefore considered to be Antichrist. 
Protestants generally believe it has ref¬ 
erence to the papacy, and, on the other 
hand, Catholics connect it with Protest¬ 
antism. 


Apocarpous (ap-o-kar'pus), 

P P any, a term a 


in bot¬ 
any, a term applied to 
such fruits as are the product of a single 
flower, and are formed of one carpel, or 
a number of carpels free and separate 
from each other. 


A nnpvvrillfl ( a-p o k ' r i-f a ; Greek, 

upocrypna . things concealed or spu _ 

rious’), a term applied in the earliest 
churches to various sacred or professedly 
inspired writings, sometimes given to 
those whose authors were unknown, 
sometimes to those with a hidden mean¬ 
ing, and sometimes to those considered 
objectionable. The term is specially ap¬ 
plied to the fourteen undermentioned 
books which were written during the 
two centuries preceding the birth of 
Christ. They were written, not in He¬ 
brew, but in Greek, and the Jews never 
allowed them a place in their sacred 
canon. They were incorporated into the 
Septuagint, and thence passed to the 
Vulgate. The Greek Church excluded 
them from the canon in 360 at the Coun¬ 
cil of Laodicea. The Latin Church 
treated them with more favor, but it 
was not until 1546 that they were for¬ 
mally admitted into the canon of the 
Church of Rome by a decree of the 
Council of Trent. The Anglican Church 
says they may be read for example of 
life and instruction of manners, but that 
the church does not apply them to es¬ 
tablish any doctrine. Fourteen books 
form the Apocrypha of the English Bi¬ 
ble ;—The first and second books of Es- 
dras, Tobit, Judith, the rest of the Book 
of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, the 
Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or 
Ecclesiasticus, Baruch the Prophet, the 
Song of the Three Children, Susanna and 
the Elders, Bel and the Dragon, the 
Prayer of Manasses, and the first and 
second Books of Maccabees. Besides the 
Apocryphal books of the Old Testament 
there are many spurious books composed 
in the earlier ages of Christianity, and 
published under the names of Christ and 
his apostles, or of such immediate fol¬ 
lowers as from their character or means 
of intimate knowledge might give an ap¬ 
parent plausibility for such forgeries. 
These writings comprise: 1st, the Apoc¬ 
ryphal Gospels, which treat of the his¬ 
tory of Joseph and the Virgin before the 
birth of Christ, of the infancy of Jesus, 
and of the acts of Pilate; 2d, the Apoc¬ 
ryphal Acts of the Apostles; and 3d, 
the Apocryphal Apocalypses, none of 



f 

Apocynacese 


Apollo 


which have obtained canonical recogni¬ 
tion by any of the churches. See Apoc¬ 
ryphal Books of the New Testament. 

Apocynacese 

donous plants, having for its type the 
genus Apocynum or dog-bane. The 
species have opposite or sometimes 
whorled leaves without stipules; the co¬ 
rolla monopetalous, hypogynous and with 
the stamens inserted upon it; fruit two- 
celled. The plants yield a milky juice, 
which is generally poisonous; several 
yield caoutchouc, and a few edible fruits. 
The bark of several species is a powerful 
febrifuge. To the order belongs the peri¬ 
winkle (Vinca). See Dog-bane, Cow- 
tree , Periwinkle, Oleander, Tanghin. 
AftOda (ap'o-da; lit. footless ani- 
mals), a name sometimes 

given to the snake-like or worm-like 
amphibians, as also to the apodal fishes 
(which see). 

Ap'odal Fishes, the , name , applied to 

* 9 such malacopterous 

fishes as want ventral fins. They con¬ 
stitute a small natural family, of which 
the common eel is an example. 
Anodosis (a-pod'o-sis), in gram., the 
^ latter member of a condi¬ 

tional sentence (or one beginning with 
if, though, etc.) dependent on the con¬ 
dition or protasis; as, ‘ if it rain (pro¬ 
tasis) I shall not go’ ( apodosis ). 

A-nncrpp (ap'o-je; Greek, apo, from, 

xxpugee and g€f the earth)> that 

point in the orbit of the moon or a 
planet where it is at its greatest distance 
from the earth; properly this particular 
part of the moon’s orbit. 

Annl'dp a town of Germany, in Saxe- 
9 Weimar, at which woolen 


goods are extensively manufactured. 
Pop. 20,352. 

Apollinarians <«£“''aSSLS 

who maintained the doctrine that the 
Logos (the Word) holds in Christ the 
place of the rational soul, and conse¬ 
quently that God was united in him with 
the human body and the sensitive soul. 
Apollinaris, the author of this opinion, 
was, from a.d. 362 till at least a.d. 382 
Bishop of Laodicea, in Syria, and a 
zealous opposer of the Arians. As a 
man and a scholar he was highly esteemed 
and was among the most popular au¬ 
thors of his time. He formed a congre¬ 
gation of his adherents at Antioch, and 
made Vitalis their bishop. The Apollina¬ 
rians, or Vitalians, as their followers 
were called, soon spread their sentiments 
in Syria and the neighboring countries, 
established several societies, with their 
own bishops, and one even in Constan¬ 


tinople ; but the sect was suppressed in 
428 by imperial edict. 

Annllinaric (a-pol-i-na'ris) Water, a 

iipomnans natural aerated water, 

belonging to the class of acidulated soda 
waters, and derived from the Apollinaris- 
brunnen, a spring in the valley of the 
Ahr, near the Rhine, in Rhenish Prussia, 
forming a highly esteemed beverage. 


A rmlln (a-pol'lo), son of Zeus (Jupi- 
-TL|JU1IU ter) and Leto (Latona)> who 


being persecuted by the jealousy of Hera 
(Juno), after tedious wanderings and 
nine days’ labor, was delivered of him 
and his twin sister, Artemis (Diana), 
on the island of Delos. Skilled in the 
use of the bow, he slew the serpent 
Python on the fifth day after his birth ; 
afterwards, with his sister Artemis, he 



Apollo, from a bas-relief at Rome. 


killed the children of Niobe. He aided 
Zeus in the war with the Titans and the 
giants. He destroyed the Cyclopes, be¬ 
cause they forged the thunderbolts with 
which Zeus killed his son and favorite 
Asklepios (iEsculapius). According to 
some traditions, he invented the lyre, 
though this is generally ascribed to Her¬ 
mes (Mercury). Apollo was originally 
the sun-god; and though in Homer he 
appears distinct from Helios (the sun), 
yet his real nature is hinted at even here 
by the epithet Phoebus, that is, the radi¬ 
ant or beaming. In later times the view 
was almost universal that Apollo and 
Helios were identical. From being the 
god of light and purity in a physical sense 
he gradually became the god of moral 
and spiritual light and purity, the source 
of all intellectual, social, and political 
progress. He thus came to be regarded 
as the god of song and prophecy, the 
















Apollodorus 


Apophyllite 


god that wards off and heals bodily suf¬ 
fering and disease, the institutor and 
guardian of civil and political order, 
and the founder of cities. His worship 
was introduced at Rome at an early 
period, probably in the time of the Tar- 
quins. Among the ancient statues of 
Apollo that have come down to us, the 
most remarkable is the one called the 
Apollo Belvidere, from the Belvidere 
Gallery in the Vatican at Rome. This 
statue was found in the ruins of Antium 
in 1503, and was purchased by Pope 
Julian II. It is now supposed to be a 
copy of a Greek statue of the third cen¬ 
tury b.c., and dates probably from the 
reign of Nero. 

Apollodorus who 

flourished 140 b.c. Among the numer¬ 
ous works he wrote on various subjects, 
the only one extant is his Bibliotheca, 
which contains a concise account of the 
mythology of Greece down to the heroic 
age. 

Apollonius (a-pol-lo'ni-us) OF Perga, 
2ipuiiUIIIU& Greek mathematician, 


called the ‘ great geometer,’ flourished 
about 240 b.c., and was the author of 
many works, only one of which, a treatise 
on Conic Sections, partly in Greek and 
partly in an Arabic translation, is now 
extant. 


Apollo'nius of Rhodes, JimtoS 

cian and poet, flourished about 230 b.c. 
Of his various works we have only the 
Argonautica, an epic poem of moderate 
merit, though written with much care 
and labor, dealing with the story of the 
Argonautic expedition. 

Apollo'nius of Ty'ana, jf oc £ app a 

Pythagorean philosopher who was born 
in the beginning of the Christian era, 
early adopted the Pythagorean doctrines, 
abstaining from animal food and main¬ 
taining a rigid silence for five years. He 
traveled extensively in Asia, professed 
to be endowed with miraculous powers, 
such as prophecy and the raising of the 
dead, and was on this account set up by 
some as a rival to Christ. His ascetic 
life, wise discourses, and wonderful deeds 
obtained for him almost universal rever¬ 
ence, and temples, altars, and statues 
were erected to him. He died at Ephesus 
about the end of the first century. A 
narrative of his strange career, contain¬ 
ing many fables, with, perhaps, a kernel 
of truth, was written by Philostratus 
about a century later. 

Apollo'nius of Tyre,^ 1 e e her ^[ c g 

had an immense popularity in the middle 


ages and which furnished the plot of 
Shakespere’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre. 
The story, originally in Greek, first ap¬ 
peared in the third century after Christ. 
A-nnllrm (a-pol'los), a Jew of Alex- 
■npunua andr j a> w h 0 learned the doc¬ 
trines of Christianity at Ephesus from 
Aquila and Priscilla, became a preacher 
of the gospel in Achaia and Corinth, and 
an assistant of Paul in his missionary 
work. Some have regarded him as the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

ApnllvOP (a-pol'yun; ‘the D e- 
iipimyun s t r oyer’), a name used 

in Rev. ix, 11, for the angel of the bot¬ 
tomless pit. 

Anolog’etics (a-pol-o-jet'iks), a term 

XipuiUgCLl^ applied to that bran ch 

of theological learning which consists in 
the systematic exhibition of the argu¬ 
ments for the divine origin of Christi¬ 
anity. See Evidence of Christianity. 

Apnlnpnie (ap'o-log), a story or rela- 
xxpu Ug tion fictitious events in¬ 
tended to convey some useful truths. It 
differs from a parable in that the latter 
is drawn from events that pass among 
mankind, whereas the apologue may be 
founded on supposed actions of brutes or 
inanimate things. iEsop’s fables are 
good examples of apologues. 

A-nnlno’V (a-pol'o-ji), a term at one 
time applied to a defense 
of one who is accused, or of certain doc¬ 
trines called in question. Of this nature 
are the Apologies of Socrates , attributed 
respectively to Plato and Xenophon. The 
name passed over to Christian authors, 
who gave the name of apologies to the 
writings which were designed to defend 
Christianity against the attacks and ac¬ 
cusations of its enemies, particularly the 
pagan philosophers, and to justify its 
professors before the emperors. Of this 
sort were those by Justin Martyr, Athen- 
agoras, Tertullian, Tatian, and others. 

Aponeurosis (ap-o-nii-ro'sis), in an- 

atomy, a name of cer¬ 
tain grayish-white shining membranes, 
composed of interlacing fibers, sometimes 
continuous with the muscular fiber, and 
differing from tendons merely in having 
a flat form. They serve several purposes, 
sometimes attaching the muscles to the 
bones, sometimes surrounding the muscle 
and preventing its displacement, etc. 

Apophthegm (ap'o-them), a short 
Apupiiuicgiii pithy sentence or 

maxim. Julius Caesar wrote a collection 
of them, and we have a collection by 
Lord Bacon. 

Apophvllite ( a ;P0f'i-lIt), a species of 
xxpupiijxiAtc mineral of a foliated 

structure and pearly luster, called also 
fish-eye stone. It belongs to the Zeolite 



Apoplexy 


Apostolic 


family, and is a hydrated silicate of lime 
and potash, containing also fluorine. 
At)OT)leXV ( a P'o-plek-si), abolition or 
" " J sudden diminution of sen¬ 
sation and voluntary motion, from suspen¬ 
sion of the functions of the cerebrum, 
resulting from congestion or rupture of 
the blood-vessels of the brain and result¬ 
ing pressure on this organ. In a com¬ 
plete apoplexy the person falls suddenly, 
is unable to move his limbs or to speak, 
gives no proof of seeing, hearing, or feel¬ 
ing, and the breathing is stertorous or 
snoring, like that of a person in deep 
sleep. The premonitory symptoms of 
this dangerous disease are drowsiness, 
giddiness, dullness of hearing, frequent 
yawning, disordered vision, noise in the 
ears, vertigo, etc. It is most frequent be¬ 
tween the ages of fifty and seventy. A 
large head, short neck, full chest, san¬ 
guine and plethoric constitution, and cor¬ 
pulency. are generally considered signs 
of predisposition to it; but the state of 
the heart’s action, with a plethoric con¬ 
dition of the vascular system, has a more 
marked influence. Out of 63 cases care¬ 
fully investigated only 10 were fat and 
plethoric, 23 being thin, and the rest of 
ordinary habit. Among the common pre¬ 
disposing causes are long and intense 
thought, continued anxiety, habitual in¬ 
dulgence of the temper and passions, sed¬ 
entary and luxurious living, sexual in¬ 
dulgence, intoxication, etc. More or less 
complete recovery from a first and second 
attack is common, but a third is almost 
invariably fatal. 

Annqirmpsis (a-po-si-o-pe'sis), in rhet- 

iiposiopebib oric? a sudden break or 

stop in speaking or writing, usually for 
mere effect or a pretense of unwillingness 
to say anything on a subject; as * his 
character is such—but it is better I 
should not speak of that.' 

A-nnc+a<jTr (a-pos'ta-si; Gr. apostasis , 
Apostasy a gtanding away f r 0m)f a 

renunciation of opinions or practices and 
the adoption of contrary ones, usually 
applied to renunciation of religious 
opinions. It is always an expression of 
reproach. What one party calls apostasy 
is termed by the other conversion. Catho¬ 
lics, also, call those persons apostates 
who forsake a religious order or renounce 
their religious vows without a lawful 
dispensation. 

A posteriori ^ h 

A-nnsflpc (a-pos'ls; literally per- 
xipubtlcb sons sen t out; from the 

Greek apostellein, ‘to send out’), the 
twelve men whom Jesus selected to at¬ 
tend him during his ministry, and to 
promulgate his religion. Their names 


were as follows:—Simon Peter, and An¬ 
drew his brother; James, and John his 
brother, sons of Zebedee; Philip; Bar¬ 
tholomew ; Thomas; Matthew; James, 
the son of Alpheus; Lebbeus, his brother, 
called Judas or Jude; Simon, the Ca- 
naanite; and Judas Iscariot. To these 
were subsequently added Matthias 
(chosen by lot in place of Judas Iscariot) 
and Paul. The Bible gives the name of 
apostle to Barnabas also, who accom¬ 
panied Paul on his missions (Acts, xiv, 
14). In a wider sense those preachers 
who first taught Christianity in heathen 
countries are sometimes termed apostles. 
During the life of the Saviour the apostles 
more than once showed a misunderstand¬ 
ing of the object of His mission, and 
during His sufferings evinced, little cour¬ 
age and firmness of friendship for their 
great and benevolent Teacher. After 
his death they received the Holy Ghost 
on the day of Pentecost, that they might 
be enabled to fulfill the important duties 
for which they had been chosen. Their 
subsequent history is only imperfectly 
known. 

Apostles’ Creed, * 

tion of Christian belief, formerly believed 
to be the work of the apostles themselves, 
but it can only be traced to the fourth 
century. See Creed. 

Annqtnlir* (ap-os-tol'ik), Apostol- 

Aposionc lCALj pertaining or relating 

to the apostles.— Apostolic Church, the 
church in the time of the apostles, con¬ 
stituted according to their design. The 
name is also given to the four churches 
of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jeru¬ 
salem, and is claimed by the Roman 
Catholic Church, and occasionally by the 
Episcopalians.— Apostolic Constitutions 
and Canons , a collection of regulations 
attributed to the apostles, but generally 
supposed to be spurious. They appeared 
in the fourth century; are divided into 
eight books, and consist of rules and 
precepts relating to the duty of Chris¬ 
tians, and particularly to the ceremonies 
and discipline of the church.— Apostolic 
fathers, the Christian writers who during 
any part of their lives were contem¬ 
porary with the apostles. There are five 
—Clement, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, 
Polycarp.— Apostolic king, a title granted 
by the pope to the Kings of Hungary, 
first conferred on St. Stephen, the 
founder of the royal line of Hungary, on 
account of what he accomplished in the 
spread of Christianity.— Apostolic see, 
the see of the popes or bishops of Rome: 
so called because the popes profess them¬ 
selves the successors of St. Peter, its 
founder.— Apostolic succession, the un- 



Apostolics 


Appalachian Mountains 


interrupted succession of bishops, and, 
through them, of priests and deacons 
(these three orders of ministers being 
called the apostolical orders ), in the 
church by regular ordination from the 
first apostles down to the present day. 
All Episcopal churches hold theoretically, 
and the Roman Catholic Church and 
many members of the English Church 
strictly, that such succession is essential 
to the officiating priest, in order that 
grace may be communicated through his 
administrations. 


Apostol'ics, 


or Apos¬ 
tolic Brethren, the 
name given to certain sects who professed 
to imitate the manners and practice of 
the apostles. The last and most impor¬ 
tant of these sects was founded about 
1260 by Gerhard Segarelli of Parma. 
They went barefooted, begging, preaching, 
and singing throughout Italy, Switzer¬ 
land, and France; announced the coming 
of the kingdom of heaven and of purer 
times; denounced the papacy, and its 
corrupt and worldly church; and incul¬ 
cated the complete renunciation of all 
worldly ties, of property, settled abode, 
marriage, etc. This society was formally 
abolished, 1286, by Honorius IV. In 
1300 Segarelli w r as burned as a heretic, 
but another chief apostle appeared—Dol- 
cino, a learned man of Milan. In self- 
defense they stationed themselves in for¬ 
tified places whence they might resist at¬ 
tacks. After having devastated a large 
tract of country belonging to Milan they 
were subdued, a.d. 1307, by the troops of 
Bishop Raynerius, in their fortress Ze- 
bello, in Vercelli, and almost all destroyed. 
Dolcino was burned. The survivors af¬ 
terwards appeared in Lombardy and in 
the south of France as late as 1368. 
Apostrophe ( a -P° s ' trM «; Greek ‘a 

1 * turning away from’), a 

rhetorical figure by which the orator 
changes the course of his speech, and 
makes a short impassioned address to one 
absent as if he were present, or to things 
without life and sense as if they had life 
and sense. The same term is also applied 
to a comma when used to contract a word, 
or to mark the possessive case, as in 
‘ John’s book.’ 


Apothecaries’ weight, * h s e ed 7 n ei f^ 

pensing drugs, in which the pound (lb.) 
is divided into 12 ounces (5), the ounce 
into 8 drachms (3), the drachm into 3 
scruples (9), and the scruple into 20 
grains (grs.), the grain being equivalent 
to that in avoirdupois weight. 

Apothecary (a-poth'e-ka-ri), in a 
r J general sense, one who 

keeps a shop or laboratory for preparing, 


compounding, and vending medicines, 
and for the making up of medical pre¬ 
scriptions. In England the term was long 
applied (as to some little extent still) to 
a regularly licensed class of medical 
practitioners, being such persons as were 
members of, or licensed by, the Apothe - 
carles’ Company in London. The apoth¬ 
ecaries of London were at one time 
ranked with the grocers, with whom they 
were incorporated by James I in 1606. 
In 1617, however, the apothecaries re¬ 
ceived a new charter as a distinct com¬ 
pany. The Apothecaries’ Company have 
prescribed a course of medical instruction 
and practice for candidates for the license 
of the society. In the United States the 
several States have laws controlling 
apothecaries. 

A-nnfhpoinm (ap-o-the'si-um), in bot- 
npuiIietlUJii any, t he receptacle of 

lichens, consisting of the spore-cases or 
asci, and of the paraphyses or barren 
threads. 

A-nnfTi Ancic (ap-o-the-o'sis ; deifica- 
iipomeoblb t ion), a solemnity 

among the ancients by which a mortal 
was raised to the rank of the gods. The 
custom of placing mortals, who had ren¬ 
dered their countrymen important serv¬ 
ices, among the gods was very ancient 
among the Greeks. The Romans, for 
several centuries, deified none but Romu¬ 
lus, and first imitated the Greeks in 
the fashion of frequent apotheosis after 
the time of Caesar. From this period 
apotheosis was regulated by the decrees 
of the senate, and accompanied with great 
solemnities. The greater part of the Ro¬ 
man emperors were deified. 

Appalachian Mountains / a a P^g; 


an), also called Alleghanies, an import¬ 
ant mountain range in N. America ex¬ 
tending for 1300 miles from Cape Gasp6, 
on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, s.w. to Ala¬ 
bama. The system has been divided into 
three great sections: the northern (in¬ 
cluding the Adirondacks, the Green Moun¬ 
tains, the White Mountains, etc.), from 
Cape Gaspg to New York; the central 
(including a large portion of the Blue 
Ridge, the Alleghanies proper, and numer¬ 
ous lesser ranges), from New York to the 
valley of the New River; and the south¬ 
ern (including the continuation of the 
Blue Ridge, the Black Mountains, the 
Smoky Mountains, etc., from the New 
River southwards). The chain consists of 
several ranges generally parallel to each 
other, the altitude of the individual moun¬ 
tains increasing on approaching the 
south. The highest peaks rise over 6600 
feet (not one at all approaching the snow- 
level), but the mean height is about 2500 



Appalachian Park 


Appetite 


feet. Lake Champlain is the only lake of 
great importance in the system, but nu¬ 
merous rivers of considerable size take 
their rise here. Magnetite, hematite, and 
other iron ores occur in great abundance, 
and the coal-measures are among the 
most extensive in the world. Gold, silver, 
lead, and copper are also found, but not 
in paying quantities, while marble, lime¬ 
stone, fire-clay, gypsum, and salt abound. 
The forests covering many of the ranges 
yield large quantities of valuable timber, 
such as sugar-maple, white birch, beech, 
ash, oak, cherry-tree, white poplar, white 
and yellow pine, etc., while they form the 
haunts of large numbers of bears, pan¬ 
thers, wild cats, and wolves. 

Appalachian Park. *;°/ ble a “ n u s £; 

ber of years efforts were made to have 
Congress set aside the large areas in the 
southern Appalachians covered by hard¬ 
wood timber as a national park, as a 
means of conserving the head-waters of 
the streams which flow there. A bill for 
this purpose was passed in 1911, also 
including the White Mountains of New 
England, the United States agreeing to 
cooperate with the States in the cost of 
this important enterprise. 

Appalachicola feWuihed 

States, formed by the Chattahoochee and 
Flint Rivers, which unite near the north¬ 
ern border of Florida; length, about 100 
miles; flows into the Gulf of Mexico, 
and is navigable. 

Appanage. See Apanage . 

Armareilt (ap-pa'rent), among mathe- 
xxjjjj v maticians and astronomers, 
applied to things as they appear to the 
eye, in distinction from what they really 
are. Thus they speak of apparent mo¬ 
tion, magnitude, distance, height, etc. The 
apparent magnitude of a heavenly body 
is the angle subtended at the spectator’s 
eye by the diameter of that body, and 
this, of course, depends on the distance 
as well as the real magnitude of the 
body; apparent motion is the motion a 
body seems to have in consequence of our 
own motion, as the motion of the sun 
from east to west, etc. 

Armaritinn (ap-a-rish'un). according 

Apparition to a belief held by some , 

a disembodied spirit manifesting itself to 
mortal sight; according to the . theory 
more generally entertained, an illusion 
involuntarily generated, by means of 
which figures or forms, not present to the 
actual sense, are nevertheless depicted 
with a vividness and intensity sufficient 
to create a temporary belief of their 
reality. Such illusions are now gener¬ 


ally held to result from an overexcited 
brain, a strong imagination, or some 
bodily malady. This theory explains 
satisfactorily a large majority of the 
stories of apparitions; still there are some 
which it seems insufficient to account for. 
Anneal ( a 'Pel'), in legal phraseology, 
FF the removal of a cause from an 


inferior tribunal to a superior, in order 
that the latter may revise, and if it seem 
needful, reverse or amend, the decision 
of the former. The supreme court of ap¬ 
peal for Great Britain is the House of 
Lords. In Ireland there is also a Court 
of Appeal similar to that in England; 
while in Scotland the highest court is the 
Court of Session. In the United States 
the system of appeals differs in different 
States. In legislative bodies, an appeal 
is the act by which a member, who ques¬ 
tions the correctness of a decision of the 
presiding officer, or chairman, demands a 
vote of the body upon the decision. In the 
House of Representatives of the United 
States the question of an appeal is put 
to the House in this form: ‘ Shall the 

decision of the chair stand as the judg¬ 
ment of the House?* If the appeal re¬ 
lates to an alleged breach of decorum, or 
transgression of the rules of order, the 
question is taken without debate. If it 
relates to the admissibility or relevancy 
of a proposition, debate is permitted, ex¬ 
cept when a motion for the previous 
question is pending. 


Appendicitis & 

vermiform appendix, caused by obstruc¬ 
tions at the mouth of the appendix or by 
extension of inflammation from the colon. 
It was formerly believed that foreign 
bodies, such as grape and other small 
seeds, were the main cause. This theory 
is now generally discarded. The appen¬ 
dix becomes swollen and filled with pus, 
tending to rupture, and peritonitis may 
result. Surgical operation for the remov¬ 
al of the appendix is justified in acute and 
repeated attacks. 

Armenzell (ap'pen-tsel). a Swiss 
A FF cllZiCAA canton, wholly enclosed 
by the canton of St. Gall; area, 162 
square miles. It is divided into two inde¬ 
pendent portions or half-cantons, Ausser- 
Rhoden, which is Protestant, and Inner- 
Rhoden, which is Catholic. It is an ele¬ 
vated district, traversed by branches of 
the Alps, Mount Sends in the center 
being 8250 feet high. It is watered by 
the Sitter and by several smaller affluents 
of the Rhine. Glaciers occupy the higher 
valleys. Pop. 68.780. 

Atmetite (ap'e-ttt), in its widest 

xippctiic gens(s meang the natural 

desire for gratification, either of the body 



Appian 


Apple 


or the mind ; but is generally applied to 
the recurrent and intermittent desire for 
food. A healthy appetite is favored by 
work, exercise, plain living, and cheerful¬ 
ness ; absence of this feeling, or defective 
appetite {anorexia), indicates diseased 
action of the stomach, or of the nervous 
system or circulation, or it may result 
from vicious habits. Depraved appetite 
{pica), or a desire for unnatural food, as 
chalk, ashes, dirt, soap, etc., depends 
often in the case of children on vicious 
tastes or habits; in grown-up persons it 
may be symptomatic of dyspepsia, preg¬ 
nancy, or chlorosis. Insatiable or canine 
appetite or voracity {bulimia) when it 
occurs in childhood is generally symp¬ 
tomatic of worms; in adults common 
causes are pregnancy, vicious habits, and 
indigestion caused by stomach complaints 
or gluttony, when the gnawing pains of 
disease are mistaken for hunger. 
Airman (ap'pi-an), a Roman historian 
a of the second century after 
Christ, a native of Alexandria, was gov¬ 
ernor and manager of the imperial 
revenues under Hadrian, Trajan, and 
Antoninus Pius, in Rome. He compiled 
in Greek a Roman history, from the 
earliest times to those of Augustus, in 
twenty-four books, of which only eleven 
have come down to us—of little value. 

Amviani (ap-pi-a'ne), Andrea, a 
xippidm painter> born at Milan in 

1754, died in 1817. As a fresco-painter 
he excelled every contemporary painter in 
Italy. He displayed his skill particularly 
in the cupola of Santa Maria di S. Celso 
at Milan, and in the paintings represent¬ 
ing the legend of Cupid and Psyche, pre¬ 
pared for the walls and ceiling of the villa 
of the Archduke Ferdinand at Monza 
(1795). Napoleon appointed him royal 
court painter, and portraits of almost the 
whole of the imperial family were painted 
by him. 

Armia-n Wav called Regina Viarum, 
Appidli Wd), the Queen Qf Roads . 

the oldest and most renowned Roman 



Construction of a Portion of the Appian Way. 

road, was constructed during the censor¬ 
ship of Appius Claudius Caecus (b.c. 


313-310). It was built with large square 
stones on a raised platform, and was 
made direct from the gates of Rome to 
Capua, in Campania. It was afterwards 
extended through Samnium and Apulia to 
Brundusium, the modern Brindisi. It 
was partially restored by Pius VI, and in 
1850-53 it was excavated by order of Pius 
IX as far as the eleventh milestone from 
Rome. 


Appius Claudius 


(ap'pi-us cla'di- 
us), surnamed 
Ccecus, or the blind, an ancient Roman, 
elected censor b.c. 312, which office he 
held four years. While in this position 
he made every effort to weaken the power 
of the plebs, and constructed the road and 
aqueduct named after him. He was sub¬ 
sequently twice consul, and once dictator. 
In his old age he became blind, but in 
b.c. 280 he made a famous speech in 
which he induced the senate to reject the 
terms of peace fixed by Pyrrhus. He is 
the earliest Roman w’riter of prose and 
verse whose name we know. 


Appius Claudius Crassus, ° n h eo | 

Roman decemvirs, appointed B.c. 451 to 
draw up a new 7 code of laws. He and his 
colleagues plotted to retain their power 
permanently, and at the expiration of 
their year of office refused to give up 
their authority. The people were incensed 
against them, and the following circum¬ 
stances led to their overthrow. Appius 
Claudius had conceived an evil passion for 
Virginia, the daughter of Lucius Vir- 
ginius, then absent with the army in the 
w^ar with the ^Equi and Sabines. At the 
instigation of Appius, Marcus Claudius, 
one of his clients, claimed Virginia as 
the daughter of one of his own female 
slaves, and the decemvir, acting as judge, 
decided that in the meantime she should 
remain in the custody of the claimant. 
Virginius, hastily summoned from the 
army, appeared with his daughter next 
day in the forum, and appealed to the 
people; but Appius Claudius again ad¬ 
judged her to M. Claudius. Unable to 
rescue his daughter, the unhappy father 
stabbed her to the heart. The decemvirs 
were deposed by the indignant people b.c. 
449, and Appius Claudius died in prison 
or was strangled. 

Arynle Pyrus Malus), the fruit 

PP of a well-know r n tree of the nat. 
order Rosacese, or the tree itself. The 
apple belongs to the temperate regions of 
the globe, over which it is almost uni¬ 
versally spread and cultivated. The tree 
attains a moderate height, wdth spreading 
branches; the leaf is ovate; and the 
flowers are produced from the wood of 
the former year, but more generally from 










-• 

* 

' 











♦ 







Appleby 


Apprentice 


very short shoots or spurs from wood of 
two years’ growth. The original of all 
the varieties of the cultivated apple is the 
wild crab, which has a small and ex¬ 
tremely sour fruit, and is a native of most 
of the countries of Europe. To the 
facility of multiplying varieties by graft¬ 
ing is to be ascribed the amazing exten¬ 
sion of the sorts of apples. Many of the 
more marked varieties are known by gen¬ 
eral names, as pippins, codlins, rennets, 
etc. Apples for the table are charac¬ 
terized by a firm juicy pulp, a sweetish 
acid flavor, regular form, and beautiful 
coloring; those for cooking by the prop¬ 
erty of forming by the aid of heat into a 
pulpy mass of equal consistency, as also 
by their large size and keeping properties; 
apples for cider must have a considerable 
degree of astringency, with richness of 
juice. The propagation of apple trees is 
accomplished by seeds, cuttings, suckers, 
layers, budding, or grafting, the last being 
almost the universal practice. The tree 
thrives best in a rich deep loam or marshy 
clay, but will thrive in any soil provided 
it is not too wet or too dry. The wood of 
the apple tree or the common crab is hard, 
close-grained, and often richly colored, 
and is suitable for turning and cabinet 
work. The fermented juice ( verjuice) of 
the crab is employed in cookery and 
medicine. Cider, the fermented juice of 
the apple, is a favorite drink in many 
parts of the United States. The designa¬ 
tion apple, with various modifying words, 
is applied to a number of fruits having 
nothing in common with the apple proper, 
as alligator-apple (which see), love- 
apple (see Tomato ), etc. 

Armlehv (ap'p’l-be), county town of 
• n \tM ,ACU J r Westmoreland, England, on 
the Eden, 28 miles s. s. e. Carlisle, giv¬ 
ing its name to a parliamentary division 
of the county. It has an old castle, the 
keep of which, called Caesar’s Tower, is 
still fairly preserved. Pop. 1736, 

Apple of discord, “Voreek 

mythology, the golden apple thrown into 
an assembly of the gods by the goddess of 
discord (Eris) bearing the inscription 
‘for the fairest.’ Aphrodite (Venus), 
Hera (Juno), and Pallas (Minerva) be¬ 
came competitors for it, and its adjudica¬ 
tion to the first by Paris so inflamed the 
jealousy and hatred of Hera to all of the 
Trojan race (to which Paris belonged) 
that she did not cease her machinations 
till Troy was destroyed. 

A rmlp nf Sftdnrn a fruit described by 

iippie oi doaom, old writers as ex _ 

ternally of fair appearance, but turning 
to ashes when plucked; probably the 
fruit of Solatium sodomeum. 

14—1 


Appleton (ap'p’Him), a city, eapi- 

rr tal of Outagamie Co., Wis¬ 

consin, 100 m. n.w. of Milwaukee by 
rail. It has abundant water power, 
operating many flour, paper, saw, and 
woolen mills, and other manufactories, 
also large breweries. It is the seat of a 
collegiate institute and of Lawrence Uni¬ 
versity. Pop. 16,773. 

Appoggiatura (ap-poj-a-ta'ra), in 

rr dd music, a small addi¬ 

tional note of embellishment preceding the 
note to which it is attached, and taking 
away from the principal note a portion of 
its time. 


Appomattox l®;P?; mat ' oks) .; 1 court- 

house, a village in 
Virginia, 20 m. e. of Lynchburg. Here 
on 9th April, 1865, Gen. Lee surrendered 
to Gen. Grant, and thus virtually con¬ 
cluded the American Civil war. 

Apposition (ap-o-zish'un) in gram- 
mar, the relation in 
which one or more nouns or substantive 
phrases or clauses stand to a noun or 
pronoun, which they explain or char¬ 
acterize without being predicated of it, 
and with which they agree in case; as 
Cicero, the orator , lived in the first cen¬ 
tury before Christ; the opinion, that a 
severe winter is generally followed by a 
good summer, is a vulgar error. 
Armrcikpr (a-pra'zer), one who ap- 
praises; a person ap¬ 
pointed and sworn to set a value upon 
things to be sold or otherwise requiring 
appraisement. 

A-nurehension ( a P _r e-hen'shun), the 
capture of a person 
upon a criminal charge. The term arrest 
is applied to civil cases; as, a person hav¬ 
ing authority may arrest on civil process, 
and apprehend on a criminal warrant. 
See Arrest. 

Apprentice (a-pren'tis), one bound 
Ur by indenture to serve 

some particular individual for a specified 
time, in order to be instructed in some 
art, science, or trade. At common law 
an infant may bind himself apprentice 
by indenture, because it is for his benefit. 
But this contract, on account of its 
liability to abuse, has been regulated by 
statute in the United States, and is not 
binding upon the infant unless entered 
into by him with the consent of the 
parent or guardian, or by the parent or 
guardian for him, with his consent. The 
duties of the master are, to instruct the 
apprentice by teaching him the knowledge 
of the art which he had undertaken to 
teach him, though he will be excused for 
not making a good workman if the ap¬ 
prentice is incapable of learning the trade. 
He cannot dismiss his apprentice except 




Approaches 


Apse 


by consent of all the parties to the 
indenture. An apprentice is bound to 
obey his master in all his lawful com¬ 
mands, take care of his property, and 
promote his interests, and endeavor to 
learn his trade or business, and perform 
all the covenants in his indenture not 
contrary to law. He must not leave his 
master’s service during the term of his 
apprenticeship. The custom of appren¬ 
ticing has greatly declined of late years 
in this country, and manual training 
and trade schools have been instituted 
for the teaching of the use of tools in 
various trades. 


Approaches <a-Proch'es) zigzag 

trenches made to con¬ 
nect the parallels in besieging a fortress. 

Appropriation i^let^flegisiV- 


tive body setting aside a sum of money 
from the treasury for a specific purpose. 
In the United States no money can be 
drawn from the U. S. government treas¬ 
ury except in consequence of appropria¬ 
tions made by Congress (Constitution, 
Art. I). Under this clause it is neces¬ 
sary for Congress to appropriate money 
for the support of the Federal govern¬ 
ment and in payment of claims against it. 
In the House of Representatives appro¬ 
priation bills have precedence. Similar 
laws exist in the several States and in 
Britain and other countries. 


Approximation ( a Pr t ° e k r ^' m ®'|d un ^ 


mathematics to signify a continual ap¬ 
proach to a quantity required, when no 
process is known for arriving at it exact¬ 
ly. Although, by such an approximation, 
the exact value of a quantity cannot be 
discovered, yet, in practice, it may be 
found sufficiently correct; thus the 
diagonal of a square, whose sides are 
represented by unity, is V 2, the exact 
value of which quantity cannot be ob¬ 
tained ; but its approximate value may be 
substituted in the nicest calculations. 

Appuleius / e * P‘ pfl * 1§ ' us )- See A P U ' 


Anriprit (ap'ri-kot; Prunus Arme- 
xxpiiouu ni&ca)f a fruit of the p]um 

genus which was introduced into Europe 
from Asia more than three centuries be¬ 
fore Christ, and into England in the 
first half of the sixteenth century. It is 
a native of Armenia and other parts of 
Asia and also of Africa. The apricot is 
a low tree, of rather crooked growth, with 
somewhat heart-shaped leaves and sessile 
flowers. The fruit is sweet, more or less 
juicy, of a yellowish color, about the size 
of the peach, and somewhat resembling it 
in delicacy of flavor. The wood is 
coarsely grained and soft. Apricot trees 


have been introduced into California, 
where they are largely grown. 

Atvript; (a'pri-ez), Pharaoh-Hophra of 
1 Scripture, the eighth king of 

the twenty-sixth Egyptian dynasty. He 
succeeded his father Psamuthius in 590 
or 588 b. c. The Jews under Zedekiah 
revolted against their Babylonian oppres¬ 
sors and allied themselves with Apries, 
who was, however, unable to raise the 
siege of Jerusalem, which was taken by 
Nebuchadnezzar. A still more unfortu¬ 
nate expedition against Cyrene brought 
about revolt in his army, in endeavoring 
to suppress which Apries was defeated 
and slain about b.c. 569. 

Auril (a'pril; Lat. Aprllis, from aperire, 
^ to open, because the buds open at 
this time), the fourth month of the year. 
The strange custom of making fools on 
the 1st April by sending people upon 
errands and expeditions which end in dis¬ 
appointment, and raise a laugh at the ex¬ 
pense of the person sent has long pre¬ 
vailed. It has been connected with the 
miracle plays of the middle ages, in which 
the Saviour was represented as having 
been sent, at this period of the year, from 
Annas to Caiphas and from Pilate to 
Herod. In France the party fooled is 
called un poisson (Tamil. ‘ an April 

fish.* 


A -nri nvi (a prl-o'ri; ‘ from what goes 
before ’), a phrase applied to 
a mode of reasoning by which we proceed 
from general principles or notions to 
particular cases, as opposed to a posteriori 
(‘from what comes after’) reasoning, 
by which we proceed from knowledge pre¬ 
viously acquired. Mathematical proofs 
are of the a priori kind ; the conclusions 
of experimental science are a posteriori. 
It is also a term 
applied to knowl¬ 
edge independent 
of all experience. 

Apse < a P s )> a 

-r porti o n 
of any building 
forming a term¬ 
ination or pro¬ 
jection semicir¬ 
cular or p o 1 y- 
gonal in plan, 
and having a 
roof forming ex¬ 
ternally a semi¬ 
dome or semi¬ 
cone, or having 
ridges corres¬ 
ponding to the 
angles of the 
polygon; espec¬ 
ially such a 

gonal recess projecting from 



Apse— Laach, Germany, 
semicircular or poly- 


or 

the 


east 




















Apsheron 


Aquarium 


end of the choir or chancel of a church, 
in which the altar is placed. The apse 
was developed from the somewhat similar 
part of the Roman basilicae, in which the 
magistrate ( proctor ) sat. 

AnqTiprnn (ap'sha-ron), a peninsula 
xxpsnci Uli on the western shore of the 
Caspian Sea formed by the eastern ex¬ 
tremity of the Caucasus Mountains. It 
extends for about 40 m., and terminates 
in Cape Apsheron. It yields immense 
quantities of petroleum. See Baku. 
Ansis ( a P' sis )« pl- Ap'sides or Apsi'des, 
in astronomy one of the two 
points of the orbit of a heavenly body 
situated at the extremities of the major 
axis of the ellipse formed by the orbit, 
one of the points being that at which the 
body is at its great¬ 
est and the other 
that at which it is 
at its least distance d 
from its primary. 

In regard to the 
earth and the other 
planets, these two 
points correspond a a, Apsides, 
to the aphelion and 

perihelion; and in regard to the moon 
they correspond to the apogee and perigee. 
The line of the apsides has a slow for¬ 
ward angular motion in the plane of the 
planet’s orbit, being retrograde only in 
Venus. This in the earth’s orbit pro¬ 
duces the anomalistic year. See Anomaly. 

Ayyf (at; anc. Apta Julia), a town of 
southern France, department Vau- 
cluse, 32 miles e. by s. of Avignon, with 
an ancient Gothic cathedral. Pop. 4990. 

Anfpra (ap'te-ra), wingless insects, 
il r lcia such as lice and certain 



others. 

(ap'ter-iks), a nearly extinct 

g enus 0 f cursorial birds, dis¬ 
tinguished from the ostriches by having 
three toes with a rudimentary hallux, 
which forms a spur. They are natives 
of the South Island of New Zealand; 
are totally wingless and tailless, with 
feathers resembling hairs; about the size 
of a small goose; with long curved beak 
something like that of a curlew.. They 
are entirely nocturnal, feeding on insects, 
worms, and seeds.— A. australis, called 
Kiwi-kiwi from its cry, is the best-known 
species. 

a m, 1 ri c or Appuleitjs (ap-u-le us) , 
xljJlllclUbj author 0 f the celebrated 
satirical romance in Latin called the 
Golden Ass, born at Madaura, in Numidia, 
in the early part of the second century 
a.d. ; the time of his death unknown. 
He studied at Carthage, then at Athens, 
where he became warmly attached, in 
particular, to the Platonic philosophy, 


and finally at Rome. Returning to Car¬ 
thage he married a rich widow, whose 
relatives accused him of gaining her con¬ 
sent by magic, and the speech by which he 
successfully defended himself is still ex¬ 
tant. Besides his Golden Ass, with its 
fine episode of Cupid and Psyche, he was 
also the author of many works on phi¬ 
losophy and rhetoric, some of which are 
still extant. 

Amilia (a-pu'li-a). a department or 
B division in the southeast of 

Italy, on the Adriatic, composed of the 
provinces of Foggia, Bari, and Lecce; 
area, 8,539 sq. miles; pop. 1,959,668. 
Arnire ( a *Po'ra), a navigable river of 
Venezuela, formed by the junc¬ 
tion of several streams which rise in the 
Andes of Colombia; it falls into the 
Orinoco. 

Amirimac ( a 'PO-re'mak), a river of 
n ^ UU1Ildl South America, which 
rises in the Andes of Peru, and being 
augmented by the Vilcamayu and other 
streams forms the Ucayale, one of the 
principal headwaters of the Amazon. It 
is not navigable. 

Aq ii a ( a 'kwa or ak'wa ; Latin for 
1 water), a word much used in 
pharmacy and old chemistry. —Aqua fortis 
(=strong water), a weak and impure 
nitric acid. It has the power of eating 
into steel and copper, and hence is used 
by engravers, etchers, etc.— Aqua marina, 
a fine variety of beryl. See Aquamarine. 
—Aqua regia, or aqua regalis (=royal 
water), a mixture of nitric and hydro¬ 
chloric acids (in the proportion of one 
to four), having the power of dissolving 
gold and other noble metals.— Aqua 
Tofana, a poisonous fluid made about 
the middle of the seventeenth century by 
an Italian woman Tofana or Toffania, 
who is said to have procured the death 
of no fewer than 600 individuals by 
means of it. It consisted chiefly, it is 
supposed, of a solution of crystallized 
arsenic.— Aqua vitce (=water of life), 
or simpley aqua, a name familiarly ap¬ 
plied to the whisky of Scotland, corres¬ 
ponding in meaning with the usque¬ 
baugh of Ireland, the eau de vie 
(brandy) of the French. 

Aqua-fortiS. See preceding article. 


Aquamarine (a’kwa-ma-rsn), a ? a “« 

i given to some of the 

finest varieties of beryl of a sea-green or 
blue color. Varieties of topaz are also 
so called. 

Armarium (a-kw&'ri-um), a vessel 

Aquarium or series of vessels con _ 

structed wholly or partly of glass and con¬ 
taining salt or fresh water in which are 
kept living specimens of marine or fresh- 





THE APTERYX OR KIWI 

Strange bird found in New Zealand. Its feathers are short and stiff like quills. Its wings are so 
small as to be imperceptible. A wolf is seen in the background. 



Aquarius 


Aqueduct 



water animals along with aquatic plants. 
In principle the aquarium depends on the 
interdependence of animal and vegetable 
life; animals consuming oxygen and ex¬ 
haling carbonic acid, 
plants reversing the 
process by absorbing 
carbonic acid and giv¬ 
ing out oxygen. The 
aquarium must conse¬ 
quently be stocked both 
with plants and ani¬ 
mals, and for the wel¬ 
fare of both something 
like a proper propor¬ 
tion should exist be¬ 
tween them. The sim¬ 
plest form of aquarium 
is that of a glass vase; 
but aquariums on a 
larger scale consist of a 
tank or a number of 
tanks with plate-glass 
sides and stone floors, 
and contain sand and 
gravel, rocks, sea-weeds, 
etc. By improved ar¬ 
rangements light is ad¬ 
mitted from above, passing through the 
water in the tanks and illuminating their 
contents, while the spectator is in com¬ 
parative darkness. Aquariums on a large 
scale have been constructed in connection 
with public parks or gardens, and the 
name is also given to places of public 
entertainment in which large aquariums 
are exhibited. 

A mi a vine (a-kwa'ri-us), the Water- 
bearer . a sign in the zodiac 
which the sun enters about the 21st of 
January: so called from the rains which 
prevail at that season in Italy and the 
East. 

Ann a tint (ak'wa-tint), a method of 
i/ etcb j ng on copper by which 
a beautiful effect is produced, resembling 
a fine drawing in sepia or Indian ink. 
The special character of the effect is the 
result of sprinkling finely powdered resin 
or mastic over the plate, and causing 
this to adhere by heat, the design being 
previously etched, or being now traced 
out. The nitric acid (aqua fortis) acts 
only in the interstices between. the 
particles of resin or mastic, thus giving 
a slightly granular appearance. 

Aqua Tofa'na. See Aqua. 

Aqua vitae. See Aqua. 

Ammrlnn+ (ak'we-dukt; Lat. aqua, 

iiqueaucc water> duco , to lead)> ail 

artificial channel or conduit for the con¬ 
veyance of water from one place to an¬ 
other : more particularly applied to struc¬ 


tures for conveying water from distant 
sources for the supply of large cities. 
Aqueducts were extensively used by the 
Romans, and many of them still remain in 


The Pont du Gard Aqueduct. 

different places on the Continent of 
Europe, some being still in use. The 
Pont du Gard in the south of France, 
14 m. from Nismes, is still nearly perfect, 
and is a grand monument of the Roman 
occupation of that country. The ancient 
aqueducts were constructed of stone or 
brick, sometimes tunneled through hills, 
and carried over valleys and rivers on 
arches. The Pont du Gard is built of 
great blocks of stone; its height is 160 
feet; length of the highest arcade, 882 ft. 
The aqueduct at Segovia, originally built 
by the Romans, has in some parts two 
tiers of arcades 100 feet high, is 2921 feet 
in length, and is one of the most admired 
works of antiquity. One of the most re¬ 
markable aqueducts of modern times is 
that constructed by Louis XIV for con¬ 
veying the waters of the Eure to Ver¬ 
sailles. The extensive application of 
metal pipes has rendered the construction 
of aqueducts of the old type unnecessary; 
but what may be called aqueduct bridges 
are still frequently constructed in con¬ 
nection with water-works for the supply 
of towns, and where canals exist canal 
aqueducts are common, since the water in 
a canal must be kept on a perfect level. 
There are many other aqueducts in 
Europe and inportant ones in the United 
States, especially the Croton, more than 
40 miles long, bringing water to New 
York. One proposed to bring water 
from the Catskill Mountains will be 
92 miles long, including 16 miles of 
pipe. 







Aqueous 


Arabesque 


Aqueous 


-use or a'kwe-us) 
Humor, the limpid watery 
fluid which fills the space between the 
cornea and the crystalline lens in the 
eye. 


Aqueous rocks, 


mechanically formed 
rocks, composed of 


matter deposited by water. Called also 
sedimentary or stratified rocks. See 
Geology. 


Aquifoliace* the 

holly tribe. The species consist of trees 
and shrubs, and the order includes the 
common holly (Ilex Aquifolium ) and the 
I. paraguaycnsis, or Paraguayan tea tree. 
Amiila (ak'we-la), a town in Italy, 
U capital of the province of 

Aquila, 55 miles northeast of Rome, the 
seat of a bishop, an attractive and inter¬ 
esting town with spacious streets and 
handsome palaces. In 1703 and 1706 it 
suffered severely from earthquakes. Pop. 
18,494. The province has an area of 
2,509 sq. miles, a population of 397,645. 


'■nil a a native of Pontus, flourished 
J about 130 a.d., celebrated for 
his exceedingly close and accurate transla¬ 
tion of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. 



he became involved in the dispute be¬ 
tween the university and the Begging 
Friars as to the liberty of teaching, ad¬ 
vocating the rights claimed by the latter 
with great energy. In 1257 he received 
the degree of doctor from the Sorbonne, 
and began to lecture on theology, rapidly 
acquiring the highest reputation. In 
1263 he was at the Chapter of the 
Dominicans in London, and in 1268 in 
Italy, lecturing in Rome, Bologna, and 
elsewhere. In 1271 he was again in 
Paris lecturing to the students; in 1272 
professor at Naples. In 1263 he had 
been offered the archbishopric of Naples 
by Clement IV, but refused the offer. 
He died on his way to Lyons to attend a 
general council for the purpose of uniting 
the Greek and Latin Churches. He was 
called, after the fashion of the times, 
the angelic doctor, and was canonized by 
John XXII. The most important of his 
numerous works, which were all written 
in Latin, is the Summa Theologian, which, 
although only professing to treat of 
theology, is in reality a complete and 
systematic summary of the knowledge of 
the time. His disciples were known as 
Thomists. 


Aq'uila. See Eagle. 

Aquila'ria. See Aloes-wood. 
Aquile'gia, £ 0 f~ f s “ 

Aflllilpifl (ak-wi-le'a), an ancient city 

let near the hcad of the Adri _ 

atic Sea, in Upper Italy, built by the 
Romans in 182 or 181 b.c. Command¬ 
ing the N. e. entrance into Italy it became 
important as a commercial center and a 
military post, and was frequently the 
base of imperial campaigns. In 425 it 
was destroyed by Attila. The modern 
Aquileia or Aglar is a small place of 
about 1,000 inhabitants, consisting 
chiefly of fishermen. 

Annina*; (a-kwi'nas; i.e., of Aquino), 
Aquuidfc gT Thomas> a celebrated 

scholastic divine, born about 1227, died 
in 1274; descended from the counts of 
Aquino, in the Kingdom of 
the Two Sicilies. He was 
educated at the Benedictine 
monastery of Monte Casino, 
and at the University of 
Naples, where he studied for 
six years. About the age of 
seventeen he entered a con¬ 
vent of Dominicans, much 
against the wishes of his 
family. He attended the 
lectures of Albertus Magnus 
at Cologne, in whose company he 
visited Paris in 1245 or 1246. Here 


A mi its) Tri n (ak-wi-ta'ni-a), later 
xxq ui idiiid Aquitaine, a Roman 

province in Gaul, which comprehended the 
countries on the coast from the Garonne 
to the Pyrenees and from the sea to 
Toulouse. It was brought into connec¬ 
tion with England by the marriage of 
Henry II with Eleanor, daughter of the 
last Duke of Aquitaine. The title to the 
province was long disputed by Eng¬ 
land and France, but it was finally se¬ 
cured by the latter (1453). 

Araball (a'ra-ba), a deep, rocky valley 
or depression in northwestern 
Arabia, between the Dead Sea and Gulf 
of Akabah, a sort of continuation of the 
Jordan valley. 

Arahpsnnp (ar'a-besk), a species of 
niduc^uc ornamentation for enr i ch . 

ing flat surfaces, often consisting of fanci¬ 
ful figures, human or animal, combined 
with floral forms. There may be said to 



Renaissance Arabesque. 


be three periods and distinctive varieties 
of arabesque—(a) the Roman or Grseco- 











Arabgir 


Arabia 


Roman, introduced into Rome from the 
East when pure art was declining; (&) 
the Arabesque of the Moors as seen in the 
Alhambra, introduced by them into 
Europe in the middle ages; (c) Modern 
Arabesque, which took its rise in Italy in 
the Renaissance period of art. The 
arabesques of the Moors, who are pro¬ 
hibited by their religion from represent¬ 
ing animal forms, consist essentially of 
complicated ornamental designs based on 
the suggestion of plant-growth,. combined 
with extremely complex geometrical forms. 
Arahcnr (a-rab-ger') or Arabkir'. a 
town in Asiatic Turkey 147 
miles w. s. w. of Erzerum, noted for its 
manufactures of silk and cotton goods. 
Pop. 30,000. 

Arahi Pasba (a-ra'bi pa-sha'), Egyp- 
n.LdUL rabiid tion soldier and revo - 

lutionary leader, born in 1837. In 1881 he 
headed a military revolt, and was for a 
time virtually dictator of Egypt. Attacked 
by a British army, and after a short cam¬ 
paign, beginning with the bombardment of 
Alexandria and ending with the defeat of 
Arabi and his army at Tel-el-Ivebir, he 
surrendered and was banished to Ceylon. 
He has recently returned to Egypt. 
AraViia (a-ra'bi-a), a great peninsula 
Ai a. Ulct in the g w of Asia, bounded 

on the n. by the great Syro-Babylonian 
plain, N. e. by the Persian Gulf and the 
Sea of Oman, s. or s. e. by the Indian 
Ocean, and s. w. by the Red Sea and Gulf 
of Suez. Its length from n. w. to s. e. is 
about 1,800 miles, its mean breadth about 
600 miles, its area rather over 1,000,000 
sq. m., its pop. probably not more than 
5,000,000. Roughly described, it exhibits 
a central tableland surrounded by a 
series of deserts, with numerous scattered 
oases, while around this is a line of 
mountains parallel to and approaching the 
coasts, and with a narrow rim of low 
grounds ( tehama) between them and the 
sea. In its general features Arabia re¬ 
sembles the Sahara, of which it may be 
considered a continuation. Like the 
Sahara, it has its wastes of loose sand, its 
stretches of bare rocks and stones, its 
mountains devoid of vegetation, its oases 
with their wells and streams, their palm- 
groves and cultivated fields—islands, of 
green amid the surrounding desolation. 
Rivers proper there are none. By the 
ancients the whole peninsula was broadly 
divided into three great sections—Arabia 
Petraea (containing the city Petra), 
Deserta (desert), and Felix (happy). 
The first and last of these answer rough¬ 
ly to the modern divisions of the region 
of Sinai in the N. w. and Yemen in the 
s. w. while the name Deserta was vaguely 
given to the rest of the country. The 


principal divisions at the present are 
Madian in the northwest; south of this, 
Hejaz, Assir, and Yemen, all on the Red 
Sea, the last named occupying the south¬ 
western part of the peninsula, and com¬ 
prising a tehama or maritime lowland on 
the shores of the Red Sea, with an 
elevated inland district of considerable 
breadth; Iladramaut, on the south coast; 
Oman occupying the southeast angle; El- 
Hasa and Koveit on the Persian Gulf; 
El-Hamad (Desert of Syria), Neffid, and 
Jebel Shammar in the north; Nejd, the 
Central Highlands, which occupies a great 
part of the interior of the country, while 
south of it is the great unexplored 
Dahkna or sandy desert. Madian belongs 
to Egypt, the Hejaz, Yemen, Bahr-el- 
Hasa,* Koveit, etc., are more or less under 
the suzerainty of Turkey. The rest of 
the country is ruled by independent chiefs 
—sheikhs, emirs, and imams—while the 
title of sultan has been assumed by the 
chief of the Wahabis in Nejd, the sover¬ 
eign of Oman (who has a subvention 
from the Indian government), and some 
petty princes in the south of the penin¬ 
sula. The chief towns are Mecca, the 
birthplace of Mohammed; Medina, the 
place to which he fled from Mecca (a.d. 
622), and where he is buried; Mocha, a 
seaport celebrated for its coffee; Aden, on 
the s. w. coast, a strongly fortified gar¬ 
rison belonging to Britain; Sana, the 
capital of Yemen; and Muscat, the capital 
of Oman, a busy port with a safe anchor¬ 
age. The chief towns of the interior are 
Hail, the residence of the emir of North¬ 
ern Nejd ; Oneizah. under the same ruler; 
and Riad, capital of Southern Nejd. The 
most flourishing portions of Arabia are in 
Oman, Hadramant, and Neid. In the 
two former are localities with numerous 
towns and villages and settled industrious 
populations like that of Hindustan or 
Europe. 

The climate of Arabia in general is 
marked by extreme heat and dryness. 
Aridity and barrenness characterize both 
high and low T grounds, and the date-palm 
is often the only representative of vegeta¬ 
ble existence. There are districts which 
in the course of the year are hardly re¬ 
freshed by a single shower of rain. 
Forests there are few or none. Grassy 
pastures have their place supplied by 
steppe-like tracts., which are covered for 
a short season with aromatic herbs, serv¬ 
ing as food for the cattle. The date-palm 
furnishes the staple article of food; the 
cereals are wheat, barley, maize, and 
millet; various sorts of fruit flourish; 
coffee and many aromatic plants and sub¬ 
stances, such as gum-arabic, benzoin, 
mastic, balsam, aloes, myrrh, frankin- 



Arabia 


Arabia 


cense, etc., are produced. There are also 
cultivated in different parts of the penin¬ 
sula, according to the soil and climate, 
beans, rice, lentils, tobacco, melons, saf¬ 
fron, colocynth, poppies, olives, etc. 
Sheep, goats, oxen, the horse, the camel, 
ass, and mule supply man’s domestic and 
personal wants. Among wild animals are 
gazelles, ostriches, the lion, panther, 
hyena, jackal, etc. Among mineral prod¬ 
ucts are saltpeter, mineral pitch, petro¬ 
leum, salt, sulphur, and several precious 
stones, as the carnelian, agate, and onyx. 

The Arabs, as a race, a^e of middle 
stature, of a powerful though slender 
build, and have a skin of a more or less 
brownish color; in towns and the uplands 
often almost white. Their features are 
well cut, the nose straight, the forehead 
high. They are naturally active, intel¬ 
ligent, and courteous; and their character 
is marked by temperance, bravery, and 
hospitality. The first religion of the 
Arabs, the worship of the stars, -was sup¬ 
planted by the doctrines of Moham¬ 
medanism, which succeeded rapidly in 
establishing itself throughout Arabia. 
Besides the two principal sects of Islam, 
the Sunnites and the Shiites, there also 
exists, in considerable numbers, a third 
Mohammedan sect, the Wahabis, which 
arose in the latter half of the eighteenth 
century, and for a time possessed great 
political importance in the peninsula. 
The mode of life of the Arabs is either 
nomadic or settled. The nomadic tribes 
are termed Bedouins (or Bedawins), and 
among them are considered to be the 
Arabs of the purest blood. Commerce is 
largely in the hands of foreigners, among 
whom the Jews and Banians (Indian 
merchants) are the most numerous. 

The history of the Arabs previous to 
Mohammed is obscure. The earliest in¬ 
habitants are believed to have been of the 
Semitic race. Jews in great numbers 
migrated into Arabia after the destruction 
of Jerusalem, and, making numerous 
proselytes, indirectly favored the introduc¬ 
tion of the doctrines of Mohammed. With 
his advent the Arabians uprose and united 
for the purpose of extending the new 
creed; and under the caliphs—the suc¬ 
cessors of Mohammed—they attained 
great power, and founded large and pow¬ 
erful kingdoms in three continents. (See 
Caliphs.) On the fall of the caliphate of 
Bagdad in 1258 the decline set in, and 
on the expulsion of the Moors from Spain 
the foreign rule of the Arabs came to an 
end. In the sixteenth century Turkey 
subjected Hejaz and Yemen, and received 
the nominal submission of the tribes in¬ 
habiting the rest of Arabia. The sub¬ 
jection of Hejaz has continued down to 


the present day ; but Yemen achieved its 
independence in the seventeenth century, 
and maintained it till 1871, when the 
territory again fell into the hands of the 
Turks. In 1839 Aden was occupied by 
the British. Oman early became virtu¬ 
ally independent of the caliphs, and grew 
into a well-organized kingdom. In 1507 
its capital, Maskat or Muscat, was oc¬ 
cupied by the Portuguese, who were not 
driven out till 1659. The Wahabis ap¬ 
peared towards the end of the eighteenth 
century, and took an important part in 
the political affairs of Arabia, but their 
progress was interrupted by Mohammed 
Ali, pasha of Egypt, and they suffered a 
complete defeat by Ibrahim Pasha. He 
extended his power over most of the coun¬ 
try, but the events of 1840 in Syria com¬ 
pelled him to renounce all claims to 
Arabia. The Hejaz thus again became 
subject to Turkish sway. Turkey has 
since extended its rule not only over 
Yemen, but also over the district of El- 
Hasa on the Persian Gulf. 

Arabian Language and Literature .— 
The Arabic language belongs to the 
Semitic dialects, among which it is dis¬ 
tinguished for its richness, softness, and 
high degree of development. By the 
spread of Islam it became the sole written 
language and the prevailing speech in all 
Southwestern Asia and Eastern and 
Northern Africa, and for a time in south¬ 
ern Spain, in Malta, and in Sicily; and 
it is still used as a learned and sacred 
language wherever Islam is spread. 
Almost a third part of the Persian vo¬ 
cabulary consists of Arabic words, and 
there is the same proportion of Arabic 
in Turkish. The Arabic language is 
written in an alphabet of its own, which 
has also been adopted in writing Per¬ 
sian, Hindustani, Turkish,' etc. As in 
all Semitic languages (except the Ethi- 
opic), it is read from right to left. The 
vowels are usually omitted in Arabic 
manuscripts, only the consonants being 
written. 

Poetry among the Arabs had a very 
early development, and before the time of 
Mohammed poetical contests were held 
and prizes awarded for the best pieces. The 
collection called the Moallakat contains 
seven pre-Mohammedan poems by as many 
authors. Many other poems belonging to 
the time before Mohammed, some of equal 
age with those of the Moallakat, are also 
preserved in collections, Mohammed gave 
a new direction to Arab literature. The 
rules of faith and life which he laid down 
were collected by Abu-Bekr, first caliph 
after his death, and published by Othman, 
the third caliph, and constitute the Koran 
—the Mohammedan Bible. The progress 



Arabia 


Arabine 


of the Arabs in literature, the arts and 
sciences, may be said to have begun with 
the government of the caliphs of the 
family of the Abbassides, a.d. 749, at 
Bagdad, several of whom, as Harun al 
Rashid and Al Mamun, were munificent 
patrons of learning; and their example 
was followed by the Ommiades in Spain. 
In Spain were established numerous 
academies and schools, which were visited 
by students from other European coun¬ 
tries ; and important works were written 
on geography, history, philosophy, medi¬ 
cine, physics, mathematics, arithmetic, 
geometry, and astronomy. Most of the 
geography in the middle ages is the work 
of the Arabians, and their historians since 
the eighth century have been very numer¬ 
ous. The philosophy of the Arabians was 
of Greek origin, and derived principally 
from that of Aristotle. Numerous trans¬ 
lations of the scientific works of Aristotle 
and other Greek philosophers were made 
principally by Christian scholars who 
resided as physicians at the courts of the 
caliphs. These were diligently studied 
in Bagdad, Damascus, and Cordova, and, 
being translated into Latin, became 
known in the west of Europe. Of their 
philosophical authors the most celebrated 
are Alfarabi (tenth century), Ibn Sina 
or Avicenna (died a.d. 1037), Alghazzali 
(died 1111), Ibn Roshd or Averroes 
(twelfth century), called by preeminence 
The Commentator, etc. In medicine they 
excelled all other nations in the middle 
ages, and they are commonly regarded as 
the earliest experimenters in chemistry. 
Their mathematics and astronomy were 
based on the works of Greek writers, but 
the former they enriched, simplified, and 
extended. It was by them that algebra 
(a name of Arabic origin) was introduced 
to the western peoples, and the Arabic 
numerals were similarly introduced. As¬ 
tronomy they especially cultivated, for 
which famous schools and observatories 
were erected at Bagdad and Cordova. 
The Almagest of Ptolemy in an Arabic 
translation was early a text-book among 
them. Along with science poetry con¬ 
tinued to be cultivated, but after the ninth 
or tenth centuries it grew more and more 
artificial. Among poets were Abu Nowas, 
Asmai, Abu Temmam, Motenabbi, Abul- 
Ala, Busiri, Tograi, and Hariri. Tales 
and romances in prose and verse were 
written. The tales of fairies, genii, en¬ 
chanters, and sorcerers in particular, 
passed from the Arabians to the western 
nations, as in The Thousand and One 
Nights. Some of the books most widely 
read in the middle ages, such as The 
Seven Wise Masters and the Fables of 
Filpay or Bidpai, found their way into 


Europe through the instrumentality of 
the Arabs. At the present day Arabic 
literature is almost confined to the produc¬ 
tion of commentaries and scholia, discus¬ 
sions on points of dogma and jurispru¬ 
dence, and grammatical works on the 
classical language. There are a few 
newspapers published in Arabic. 

Arabian Architecture. f 8 f J { °<£: 

tecture, Saracenic Architecture. 

Arabian Gulf. See Red Sea. 

Arabian flights, £ D T 3£ 

Nights, a celebrated collection of Eastern 
tales, long current in the East, and sup¬ 
posed to have been derived by the Ara¬ 
bians from India, through the medium 
of Persia. They were first introduced 
into Europe in the beginning of the eight¬ 
eenth century by means of the French 
translation of Antoine Galland. Of some 
of them no original MS. is known to 
exist; they were taken down by Galland 
from the oral communication of a Syrian 
friend. The story which connects the 
tales of The Thousand and One Nights is 
as follows:—The Sultan Shahriyar, ex¬ 
asperated by the faithlessness of his bride, 
made a law that every one of his future 
wives should be put to death the morning 
after marriage. At length one of them, 
Shahrazad, the generous daughter of the 
grand-vizier, succeeded in abolishing the 
cruel custom. By the charm of her 
stories the fair narrator induced the 
sultan to defer her execution every day 
till the dawn of another, by breaking off 
in the middle of an interesting tale which 
she had begun to relate. In the form 
we possess them these tales belong to a 
comparatively late period, though the 
exact date of their composition is not 
known. Lane, who published a transla¬ 
tion of a number of the tales, with valu¬ 
able notes, is of opinion that they took 
their present form some time between 
1475 and 1525. Two complete English 
translations have recently been printed, 
giving many passages that previous trans¬ 
lators had omitted on the score of morality 
or decency. 

A rn hi an Spa the P art °f the Indian 

Araoian aea, Qcean between Arabia 

and India. 

AraTvip (ar'a-bik) Figures, the char- 

xxictuiu acters> 1( 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8 , 9, 

0; of Hindu origin, introduced into Eu¬ 
rope by the Moors. They did not come 
into general use till after the invention of 
printing. 

Am bin P (ar'a-bin), that portion of 
gum-arabic which is soluble 
in water. It is known by the name of 




Arable 


Arago 


mucilage and is used in pharmacy in 
making cough mixtures and in calico 
printing to thicken colors and mordants. 
AraKIp (ar'a-bl) Land, land which is 
xiictuic who uy or chiefly cultivated by 

the plow, as distinguished from grass¬ 
land, woodland, common pasture, and 
waste. 

A vo no or Arracacha (ar-a-ka'- 

xll dL-at/Iidj cha), a genus of umbellif¬ 
erous plants of Southern and Central 
America. The root of A. esculenta is di¬ 
vided into several lobes, each of which is 
about the size of a large carrot. These are 
boiled like potatoes and largely eaten in 
South America. 

Aropnii or Arakan (ar-a-kan'), the 
m0 st northern division of 
Lower Burmah, on the Bay of Bengal; 
area, 14,526 sq. miles; pop. 587,518. 
Ceded to the English in 1826, as a result 
of the first Burmese war. 

Arnrnri (a-ra-sa're), native name of a 
xxicU/ct 1 genus of brilliant birds (Pte- 
roglossus) closely allied to the toucans, 
but generally smaller; natives of the 
warm parts of S. America. 

Avonufi (a-ra-ka-te'), a Brazilian riv- 
AldLdii er _ port< prov . of ceara, on the 

river Jaguaribe, about 10 miles from its 
mouth. Exports hides and cotton. Pop. 
about 12,000. 

A rnppfp (a-ra'ce-e), a natural order of 
xxi dtctc monocotyledonous plants, 
mostly tropical, having the genus Arum 
as the type. Most of the species have 
tuberous roots abounding in starch, which 
forms a wholesome food after the acrid 
(and even poisonous) juice has been 
washed out. See Arum , Galadium, Dumb- 
cane. 

AvQplii<i (ar'a-kis), a genus of legu- 
■ n,Acl ^ minous plants much cul¬ 
tivated in warm climates, and esteemed a 
valuable article of food. The most re¬ 
markable feature of the genus is that 
when the flower falls the stalk supporting 
the small, undeveloped fruit lengthens, 
and bending towards the ground pushes 
the fruit into the ground, when it begins 
to enlarge and ripen. The pod of A. 
hypogcea (popularly called ground, earth, 
or pea-nut) is of a pale yellow color, 
and contains two seeds the size of a 
hazel-nut, in flavor sweet as almonds, and 
yielding when pressed an excellent oil. 

Arachnida (a-rak'ni-da; Greek, 

arachne, a spider), a 
class of Arthropoda or higher Annulose 
animals, including the Spiders, Scorpions, 
Mites, Ticks, etc. They have the body 
divided into a number of segments or 
somites , some of which have always artic¬ 
ulated appendages (limbs, etc.). There 
is often a pair of nervous ganglia in each 


somite, although in some forms (as 
spiders) the nervous system becomes 
modified and concentrated. They are 
oviparous and somewhat resemble insects, 
but they have a united head and thorax, 
and do not undergo a metamorphosis 
similar to insects. They respire by 
trachea?, or by pulmonary sacs, or by the 
skin. 

A rfl plr Arrack (ar'ak), a spirituous 
xxiai/JA, ijq Uor manufactured in the 
East Indies from a great variety of sub¬ 
stances. It is often distilled from fer¬ 
mented rice, or it may be distilled from 
the juice of the cocoanut and other 
palms. Pure arrack is clear and trans¬ 
parent, with a yellowish or straw color, 
and a peculiar but agreeable taste and 
smell; it contains at least 52 to 54 per 
cent, of alcohol. 

Avar! (o'rod), a town of Hungary, on 
111 ciu t j ie Maros, 3 Q m ii es north of 
Temeswar, divided by the river into O 
(Old) Arad and Uj (New) Arad, con¬ 
nected by a bridge; it has a fortress, and 
is an important railway center, with a 
large trade and manufactures. Pop. 
53,903. 

ArarhiQ (ar'a-dus; now Ruad), an 
zxiauua islet about a mile in circum¬ 
ference lying 2 miles off the Syrian coast, 
35 miles N. of Tripoli; the site of the 
Phoenician stronghold Arvad, a city sec¬ 
ond only to Tyre and Sidon ; now occu¬ 
pied by about 3000 people, mainly fisher¬ 
men. 

Ar'af ^ ie P ur gatory of Islam, the 
" ’ place between heaven and hell. 

Its position is not strictly defined, but it 
is undoubtedly a place of purification by 
fire. 

Arafat (ar-a-fat'), or Jebel er Rah- 
xxidicit MEH (‘Mountain of Mercy’), 

a hill in Arabia, about 200 feet high, with 
stone steps reaching to the summit, 15 
miles southeast of Mecca; one of the prin¬ 
cipal objects of pilgrimage among Moham¬ 
medans, who say that it was the place 
where Adam first received his wife Eve 
after they had been expelled from Para¬ 
dise and separated from each other 120 
years. A sermon delivered on the mount 
constitutes the main ceremony of the 
Hadj or pilgrimage to Mecca, and en¬ 
titles the hearer to the name and privi¬ 
leges of a Hadji or pilgrim. 

Araeo ( ar ' a -g°' or ar-a-go'), domi- 
& NiQUE Franqois, a French 
physicist, born in 1786; died at Paris in 
1853. After studying in the Polytechnic 
School at Paris, he was appointed a 
secretary of the Bureau des Longitudes. 
In 1806 he was associated with Biot in 
completing in Spain the measurements of 
Delambre and Mechain to obtain an arc 




Aram 


Arago 


of the meridian. Before he got back to 
France he had been shipwrecked and 
narrowly escaped being enslaved at Al¬ 
giers. In 1809 he was elected to the 
Academy of Sciences, and appointed a 
professor of the Polytechnic School. He 
distinguished himself by his researches in 
the polarization of light, galvanism, 
magnetism, astronomy, etc. His dis¬ 
covery of the magnetic properties of sub¬ 
stances devoid of iron, made known to the 
Academy of Sciences in 1824, procured 
him the Copley medal of the Royal So¬ 
ciety of London in 1825. A further con¬ 
sideration of the same subject led to the 
equally remarkable discovery of the pro¬ 
duction of magnetism by electricity. He 
took part in the revolution of 1848, and 
held the office of minister of war and 
marine in the provisional government. At 
the coup d'etat of Dec., 1852, he refused 
to take the oath to the government of 
Louis Napoleon, but the oath was not 
pressed. His works, which were posthu¬ 
mously collected and published, consist, 
besides his Astronomie Populaire, chiefly 
of contributions to learned societies and 
biographical notices ( eloges) of deceased 
members of the Academy of Sciences. 
Avqo’o Emmanuel, son of Dominique 
a S * Francois, French advocate 
and politician, was born at Paris in 1812; 
called to the bar 1837; took part in the 
revolution of 1848; renounced politics 
after the coup d'etat of Dec., 1852, but 
continued to practise at the bar. After 
the fall of the empire he again took a 
prominent part in public affairs, and held 
several important offices. He is author 
of a volume of poems and many theatrical 
pieces. Died 1896. 

Arno’n Etienne, brother of Domi- 
Aiagu, n jq Ue Arago, was born in 1802. 
He founded the journals La Reforme and 
Le Figaro; was director of the Theatre 
du Vaudeville, 1829; took part in the 
revolution of 1848; was condemned to 
transportation, 1849; fled from France, 
but returned in 1859; was mayor of 
Paris during the German war, and ap¬ 
pointed archivist to the Ecole des Beaux 
Arts, 1878. He is author of upwards of 
100 dramas; La Vie de Moliere; Les 
Bleus et les Blancs, and other works. 
He died March 6, 1892. 

A vq 0*011 (ar'a-gon), Kingdom of, a 
former province or kingdom 
of Spain, now divided into the three 
provinces of Teruel, Huesca, and Sara¬ 
gossa ; bounded on the N. by the Pyre¬ 
nees, n. w. by Navarre, w. by Castile, s. 
by Valencia, and e. by Catalonia ; length 
about 190 miles, average breadth 90 
miles; area, 18,294 sq. miles. It was 
governed by its own monarchs until the 


union with Castile on the marriage of 
Ferdinand and Isabella (1469). Pop. 
912,711. 


Aragona 0 .. 

° Sicily, 8 miles n. n. e. of 
Girgenti. Pop. 11,985. In the neighbor¬ 
hood is the mud volcano of Macculuba. 


Ara^nava (a-ra-gwl'a), a Brazilian 
& J river, principal affluent of 
the Tocantins ; rises about the 18th degree 
of s. lat.; in its course northwards forms 
the boundary between the provinces of 
Matto Grosso and Goyaz, and falls into 
the Tocantins near lat. 6° s.; length, 
about 1,300 miles, of which over 1,000 
are navigable. 


A'ral, a salt-water lake in Asia, in 
’ Russian territory, about 150 
miles w. of the Caspian Sea, between 43° 
42' and 46° 44' n. lat., and 58° 18' and 
61° 46' E. Ion.; length 270 miles, breadth 
165; area, 26,650 sq. miles (or not much 
smaller than Scotland). It stands 240 
feet above the level of the Caspian, and 
160. feet above the Mediterranean. It 
receives the Amoo Daria or Oxus and the 
Sir Daria or Jaxartes, and contains a 
multitude of sturgeon and other fish. It 
is encircled by desert sandy tracts, and 
its shores are without harbors. It has 
no outlet. The Aral contains a large 
number of small islands; steamers have 
been placed on it by the Russians. 
Aralia ( a_ra, li* a )> a genus of plants 
with small flowers arranged in 
umbels and succulent berries, the type of 
the nat. order Araliaceee, which is nearly 
related to the Umbelliferae, but the species 
are of more shrubby habit. They are 
natives chiefly of tropical or subtropical 
countries, and in Britain are represented 
by the ivy; ginseng belongs to the order. 
From the pith of A. papyrifera is ob¬ 
tained the Chinese rice-paper. 

A'ram Eugene, a self-taught scholar 
’whose unhappy fate has been 
made the subject of a ballad by Hood and 
a romance by Lord Lytton, was born in 
Yorkshire, 1704, executed for murder, 
1759. In 1734 he set up a school at 
Knaresborough. About 1745 a shoemaker 
of that place, named Daniel Clarke, was 
suddenly missing under suspicious cir¬ 
cumstances ; and no light was thrown on 
the matter till full thirteen years after¬ 
wards, when an expression dropped by 
one Richard Houseman respecting the 
discovery of a skeleton supposed to be 
Clarke’s, caused him to be taken into cus¬ 
tody. From his confession an order was 
issued for the apprehension of Aram, 
who had long quitted Yorkshire, and was 
at the time acting as usher at the gram¬ 
mar-school at Lynn. He was brought to 
trial on the 3d of August, 1759, at York, 




Aramaean 


Araucanians 


where, notwithstanding an able and 
eloquent defense which he made before 
the court, he was convicted of the murder 
of Clarke, and sentenced to death. He 
was among the first to recognize the affi¬ 
nity of the Celtic to the other European 
languages, and under favorable circum¬ 
stances might have done some valuable 
work in philosophical science. 

A vn vm op q yi (ar-a-me an) or Aramaic, 
cCcl11 a Semitic language nearly 
allied to the Hebrew and Phoenician, 
anciently spoken in Syria and Pales¬ 
tine and eastwards to the Euphrates 
and Tigris, being the official language 
of this region under the Persian dom¬ 
ination. In Palestine it supplanted 
Hebrew, and it was it and not the latter 
that was the tongue of the Jews in the 
time of Christ. Parts of Daniel and 
Ezra are written in Aramaic, or, as this 
form of it is often incorrectly named, 
Chaldee, from an old notion that the 
Jews brought from Babylon. An impor¬ 
tant Aramaic dialect is the Syriac, in 
which there is an extensive Christian 
literature. See Chaldee , Syriac. 

Araneidse < a a ™ y nS ' i - ds >> the spider 

A ran Tela ride or South Islands of 

Aran lsiancis, Aran? three islands at 

the mouth of Galway Bay, off the w. 
coast of Ireland. They are remarkable 
for a number of architectural remains of a 
very early date. The inhabitants are 
chiefly engaged in agriculture and fishing. 
The North Island of Aran lies off the 
coast of Donegal. 

A van inP 7 (a-r&n-Jiu-eth'), a small 
rLidiij uez* town and palace in Spain> 

30 miles from Madrid, with splendid 
gardens laid out by Philip II. The court 
used to reside here from Easter till the 
close of June, when the number of people 
increased from 4,000 to about 20,000. 
A ran xr (o-ron'y), Janos, Hungarian 
AiaiL J poet, born 1819, died 1882. 
He was for some time a strolling player, 
but became professor of Latin at the 
Normal School of Szalonta, professor of 
Hungarian literature at Nagy Koros, and 
secretary of the Hungarian Academy. 
Author of The Lost Constitution; 
Katalin; and a series of three connected 
narrative poems on the fortunes of Toldi, 
the Samson of Hungarian folk-lore; etc. 

Arapahoes (a-rap'a-hos) a tribe of 

r American Indians located 

near the headwaters of the Arkansas and 
Platte rivers, not now of any importance. 

Arapaima ( « a ‘ ra : p, ' m , a) ’ * gen 5 s 

r South American fresh¬ 

water fishes, order Physostomi, family 
Osteoglossidse, one species of which (A. 
gigas) grows to the length of 15 or 16 


feet, and forms a valuable article of 
food in Brazil and Guiana. It is covered 
with large bony scales, and has a bare and 
bony head. 

Ararat ( ar,a_rat )> a celebrated moun¬ 
tain in Armenia, forming the 
point of contact of Russia with Turkey 
and Persia; an isolated volcanic mass 
showing two separate cones known as the 
Great and Little Ararat, resting on a 
common base and separated by a deep 
intervening depression. The elevations 
are: Great Ararat, 16,916 feet; Little 
Ararat, 12,840 feet; the connecting ridge. 
8,780 feet. Vegetation extends to 14,200 
feet, which marks the snow-line. Accord¬ 
ing to tradition, Mount Ararat was the 
resting-place of the ark when the waters 
of the flood abated. 

Araroba, AREA ? OB A <a-ra-r5'ba) the 

9 powdered bark of Andira 
araroba. See Andira. 

A'raS (th e ancient Araxes ), a river of 
Armenia, rising s. of Erzerum 
at the foot of the Bingol-dagh; it flows 
for some miles through Turkish territory 
northeast to the new Russian frontier. 
Here it turns eastwards to the Erivan 
plain n. of Ararat, whence it sweeps in a 
semicircle mostly between the Russian 
and Persian territories round to its con¬ 
fluence with the Kur, 60 miles from its 
mouth in the Caspian; length, 500 
miles. 


Aratus 


(a-ra'tus), a Greek poet, born 
at Soli in Cilicia; flourished 


about 270 b.c., was a favorite of Ptolemy 
Philadelphus. His poem Phenomena is a 
version of a prose w r ork on astronomy by 
Eudoxus; one verse of it is quoted by St. 
Paul in his address to the Athenians 
(Acts, xvii, 28). 

'tllS OF SlCYON > a statesman of 
9 ancient Greece, born 272 b.c. 
In 251 B.c. he overthrew the tyrant of 
Sicyon and joined it to the Achaean 
League, which he greatly extended. He 
accepted the aid of Antigonus Doson, 
King of Macedon, against the Spartans, 
and became in time little more than the 
adviser of the Macedonian king, who had 
now made the League dependent on him¬ 
self. He is said to have been poisoned by 
Philip V of Macedon, 213 b.c. 

Araucanians (ar-aw-ka'ni-ans), a 
South American na¬ 
tive race in the southern part of Chile, 
occupying a territory stretching from 
about 37° to 40° of s. lat. They are war¬ 
like and more civilized than many of the 
native races of S. America, and main¬ 
tained almost unceasing war with the 
Spaniards from 1537 to 1773. when their 
independence was recognized by Spain, 
though their territory was much curtailed. 




Araucaria 


Arbitration 


Their early contests with the Spaniards 
were celebrated in Ercilla’s Spanish poem 
Araucana. With the republic of Chile 
they were long at feud, and latterly had 
at their head a French adventurer named 
Tonneins, who claimed the title of king. 
In 1882 they submitted to Chile. The 
Chilean province of Arauco receives its 
name from them. 

Aranr>avia (ar-aw-ka'ri-a), a genus of 

Araucaria trees of the coniferous or 

pine order, belonging to the southern 
hemisphere. The species are large ever¬ 
green trees with rather large, stiff, flat¬ 
tened, and generally imbricated leaves, 
verticillate spreading branches, and bear¬ 
ing large cones, each scale having a single 
large seed. One of the best known spe¬ 
cies is A. imbricdta (the Chile pine or 
puzzle-monkey), which is quite hardy. It 
is a native of the mountains of southern 
Chile, where it forms vast forests and 
yields a hard, durable wood. Its seeds 
are eaten when roasted. The Moreton 
Bay pine of N. S. Wales (A. Cunning- 
hamii) supplies a valuable timber used 
in house and boat building, in making 
furniture, and in other carpenter work. 
A species, A. excelsa, or Norfolk Island 
pine, abounds in several of the South Sea 
Islands, where it attains a height of 220 
feet with a circumference of 30 feet, and 
is described as one of the most beautiful 
of trees. Its foliage is light and graceful, 
and quite unlike that of A. imbricdta, 
having nothing of its stiff formality. Its 
timber is of some value, being white, 
tough, and close-grained. 

Avon no (a-ra'ko), a province of Chili, 
xiiauv/u named f rom the Araucanian 

Indians; area, 2458 sq. miles; capital 
Arauco. Pop. 70,635. 

Aravnlll Hills (a-ra-vul'le), a range 
Aravuill Xllllb of Indian mountains 

running N. E. and s. w. across the Rajpu- 
t&na country, which they separate into 
two natural divisions—desert plains on 
the n. w. and fertile lands on the s. E. ; 
highest point, Mount Abu (5653 feet). 
AvqwqV (ar'a-wak), a tribe of In- 
nldWdJi dians in Dutch Guiana, the 
name signifying * meal eaters,’ since 
their principal food is cassava bread. 
The name has been given to the great 
Arawakan linguistic stock, extending 
from southern Brazil and Bolivia to the 
northernmost part of the continent. It 
also spread over the West Indies, but 
was driven out by the irruption of the 
Caribs. 

Araxes (a -raks'es). See Aras. 

Arhappc* (ar-ba'ses), one of the gen- 
xxi eral{? of gardanapalus< kin? 

of Assyria. He revolted and defeated 


his master, and became the founder of 
the Median Empire in 846 b.c. 

Arbalist (ar'ba-list), a crossbow. 


Arhela (ar-be'la; now Erbil), a place 
in the Turkish vilayet of Bag¬ 
dad, giving name to the decisive battle 
fought by Alexander the Great against 
Darius, at Gaugamela, about 20 miles 
distant from it, b.c. 331. 


Arbitrage ( ar .bi-trazh), the same as 
& arbitration of exchanges. 
See next article. Arbitrageur (ar'bi-tra- 
zheu») is one who makes calculations of 
currency exchanges. 

Arbitration (ar'bi-tra'shun) is the 

hearing and determi¬ 
nation of a cause between parties in con¬ 
troversy, by a person or persons chosen 
by the parties. This may be done by one 
person, but it is common to choose more 
than one. Frequently two are nominated, 
one by each, party, with a third, the 
umpire (or, in Scotland, sometimes the 
oversman) , who is called on to decide in 
case of the primary arbitrators differing. 
In such a case the umpire may be agreed 
upon either by the parties themselves or 
by the arbitrators, when they have re¬ 
ceived authority from the parties to the 
dispute to settle this point. The deter¬ 
mination of arbitrators is called an award. 
It has the effect of a judgment, subject to 
appeal, which may be entered at any 
time within twenty days from the filing 
of such award. Arbitration in interna¬ 
tional affairs has many advocates for its 
adoption as a substitute for war, but so 
far questions of only secondary im¬ 
portance have been thus determined. The 
case of the privateer General Armstrong, 
in which the first Napoleon acted as 
arbitrator, was one of the first arbitra¬ 
tion cases in American history. The Ala¬ 
bama claims, and more recently the Beh¬ 
ring sea fisheries dispute, were settled in 
this way. and also the controversy be¬ 
tween Britain and Venezuela in 1899. 

Since this date a number of important 
questions have been submitted to and 
settled by The Hague Court of Arbitra¬ 
tion (see the following article). One 
of the most important of these was the 
fishery dispute between the United 
States and Great Britain, settled ami¬ 
cably in 1910 after it had remained open 
for a century. In 1908 was instituted 
a Central American Court of Justice 
to deal with disputes between the States 
of that chronically disputatious country. 
Two such cases have been settled by 
this court, which promises to become of 
much utility. 


Arbitration 


International, the 
’ Permanent Court of. 



Arbor Day 


Arbuthnot 


In 1898, at the request of Nicholas II, A rborptlim ( ar "fio-re'tum; Lat. arbor, 
Emperor of Russia, a conference of rep- a tree), a place in which 

resentatives of the leading nations was a collection of different trees and shrubs 
held at The Hague, the capital of the is cultivated for scientific or educational 
Netherlands, for the purpose of taking purposes. 

steps in favor of maintaining general ArboricultlirC ( ar, b° r_ i'k u i*tfi r ) i n_ 
peace and reducing the armaments of the eludes the culture of 

nations. Though it failed to produce the trees and shrubs, as well as all that per- 
results hoped for, it led to the formation tains to the preparation of the soil, the 
of a permanent court of international sowing of the seeds, and the treatment 
arbitration, before which several interna- of the plants in their young state, the 
tional disputes have since been amicably preparation of the land previous to their 
settled. At the suggestion of President final transplantation, their just adapta- 
Roosevelt a second Peace Congress was tion to soil and situation, their relative 
held at The Hague in 1907, at which 46 of growth and progress to maturity, their 
the nations were represented. The prin- management during growth, and the 
cipal achievement was the formation of an proper season and period for felling them. 
International Prize Court. The Ameri- Arbor Vltse ‘ tree 

can delegates sought to bring about a life’), the name of 

system of obligatory arbitration and the several coniferous trees of the genus 
establishment of a Permanent Court of Thuja , allied to the cypress, with flattened 
Arbitral Justice. This court was es- branchlets, and small imbricated or scale- 
tablished in principle, a large majority like leaves. The common Arbor Vitae 
of the delegates favoring a permanent ( Thuja occidentalis) is a native of North 
court of this character, but problems America, where it grows to the height of 
arose in the discussion which led to the 40 or 50 feet. The young twigs have an 
subject being postponed until the next agreeable balsamic smell. The Chinese 
congress at The Hague in 1915. The Arbor Vitae ( Thuja orientdlis), common 
idea was to have an international court, in Britain, yields a resin which was 
with seventeen judges selected from the formerly thought to have medicinal 

great jurists of the world, to sit at The virtues. 

Hague, meeting once or twice yearly, Arbroath (ar-broth'), or Aberbro- 
and ready to act without charge' on any x thock, an ancient industrial 

dispute between nations that might be borough and seaport in the county of For- 
brought before it. It would differ from far, Scotland, at the mouth of the small 
the existing Court of Arbitration in the river Brothock. Its ancient abbey, 
fact that the latter is called into session founded by William the Lion in 1178, and 
only when some case of importance is dedicated to Saints Mary and Thomas a 
submitted to it for decision. Germany Becket, is now a picturesque ruin. There 
led the opposition to obligatory arbitra- are numerous flax and hemp spinning- 
tion and succeeded in defeating it for the mills and factories, and much canvas and 
time, but the idea was reopened by linen is made; also tanning, shoemaking, 
President Taft in 1911, when he pro- and fishing, and a small shinning trade, 
posed a treaty with Great Britain in but the harbor is bad. Pop. 22,372. 
which all disputes between these nations, Arhllthnot ( ar 'buth-not), John, an 

even those concerning questions of vital eminent physician and 

interest and national honor, should be distinguished wit, born at Arbuthnot, 
arbitrated, where they could not be set- Kincardineshire, Scotland, 1667; died 
tied by diplomacy without resorting to 1735. He received the degree of Doctor 
arbitration. Treaties in accordance with of Medicine at the University of St. 
these views have been negotiated with Andrews: and went to London, where he 
the British and French governments, soon distinguished himself by his writings 
while those of Germany and Japan and by his skill in his profession. In 
seem favorably disposed toward the idea. 1704 he was chosen fellow of the Royal 
It is possible that it may lead in the end Society, and soon after he was appointed 
to a highly important extension of the physician to Queen Anne. About this 
principle of arbitration. time he became intimate with Swift, 

Arbor Dav a ^ ay designated by legis- Pope, Gay, and other wits of the day. 
xxi uui xjtxy , i a tive enactment, in the His writings, other than professional or 
different States, for the voluntary plant- scientific, include his contributions (in 
ing of trees by the people; the pupils in conjunction with Swift and Pope) to the 
the public schools now take part in the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus , History 
observance of the day. It was inaugu- of John Bull , Art of Political Lying, etc. 
rated in 1874 by the Nebraska State He was conspicuous not only for learning 
Board of Agriculture. and wit, but also for worth and humanity. 




Arbutus 


Arcesilaus 


Arbutus (&r'bu-tus), a genus of plants 
belonging to the Ericaceae, or 
heath order, and comprising a number of 
small trees and shrubs, natives chiefly of 
Europe and N. America. Arbutus Unedo 
abounds near the lakes of Killarney, 
where its fine foliage adds charms to the 
scenery. The bright red or yellow ber¬ 
ries, somewhat like the strawberry, have 
an unpleasant taste and narcotic prop¬ 
erties. The Corsicans make wine from 
them. The trailing arbutus (ar-bu'tus) 
or mayflower of N. America, a plant with 
fragrant and beautiful blossoms, is Epi- 
gtra repens , of the same natural order. 
ArP a P° rt i° n a curve line, especially 
of a circle. It is by means of 
circular arcs that all angles are measured. 
—Electric or Voltaic arc, the luminous 
arch of intense brightness and excessively 
high temperature which is formed by an 
electric current in crossing over the inter¬ 
val of space between the carbon points 
of an electric lamp. See Arc-light. 

Arc, Jeanne d\ See Joan of Arc. 


Area ( ar 'k a )> a genus of bivalve mol- 
zxiv/cfc i uscs> family Arcadse, whose 
shells are known as ark-shells. 
Arrapbrm (ar-ka-sho^), a town of S. 
xll LdLIlUII -yy F ranC e, dep. Gironde, on 

the almost landlocked basin of Arcachon, 
a much-frequented bathing-place, with 
great oyster-rearing establishments. The 
town stretches along the shore, and is 
sheltered by sand-hills and pine-woods. 
It is connected by railway with Bordeaux. 
Pop. (1906) 9006. 

Arcade ( ar_ kad'), a series of arches 
nitauc supported on piers and pillars, 



Arcade—Portico of S. Maria delle Grazie, near 
Arezzo. 

used generally as a screen and support 
of a roof, or of the wall of a build¬ 


ing, and having beneath the covered part 
an ambulatory, as around a cloister, 
or a foot-path with shops or dwell¬ 
ings, as frequently seen in old Italian 



Arcade— Romsey Church, Hampshire. 

towns. Sometimes a porch or other 
prominent part of an important building 
is treated with arcades, as in the illustra¬ 
tion. At the present day Bologna, Padua, 
and Berne have fine examples of mediaeval 
arcaded streets, and among more modern 
work various streets in Turin and the 
Rue de Rivoli, Paris, are lined with 
arcades, with shops underneath. In 
mediaeval architecture the term arcade is 
also applied to a series of arches sup¬ 
ported on pillars forming an ornamental 
dressing or enrichment of a wall, a mode 
of treatment of very frequent occurrence 
in the towers, apses, and other parts of 
churches. In modern use the name ar¬ 
cade is often applied to a passage or nar¬ 
row street containing shops arched over 
and covered with glass, as for example 
the Burlington Arcade, London, and the 
Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele in Milan. 
Arcadia (ar-ka'di-a), the central and 
^ most mountainous portion of 

the Peloponnesus (Morea), the inhabi¬ 
tants of which in ancient times were 
celebrated for simplicity of character and 
manners. Their occupation was almost 
entirely pastoral, and thus the country 
came to be regarded as typical of rural 
simplicity and happiness. At the present 
day Arcadia forms a nomarchy of the 
Kingdom of Greece. Area, 2,028 sq. 
miles; pop. 167,092. 

Arm'din* born 377, died 408; son 
211 Gd, uiua, Qf the Emperor Theodosius, 

on whose death, in 395 the empire was 

divided, he obtaining the East, and his 

brother Honorius the West. He proved a 

feeble and pusillanimous prince. 

Arnarmm (ar-ka'num), a word used 
xii kj&il mil in the mediajval period t0 

indicate the most valued preparations of 
alchemy. The ‘ Great Arcanum ’ was ap¬ 
plied to the highest problems of the 
science, such as the discovery of the 
* grand elixir ’ and other deep secrets of 
nature. 

Arcesilaus ^• r r ses ‘ i : m ' us k a f Gl T, ek 

philosopher, the founder 























Arch 


Archaean 


of the second or middle academy, was 
born about 315 b.c., died 239 b.c. He 
left no writings, and of his opinions so 
little is known that it has been doubted 
whether he was a strict Platonist or a 
skeptic. 

ArrVi Joseph, labor reformer, born in 
, Warwickshire, England, in 1826. 
Began life as a hedger; by hard study 
made himself a preacher of the Primitive 
Methodists; started a movement for the 
betterment of farm laborers; founded and 
became president of their National Un¬ 
ion. Was elected to Parliament as a 
Liberal in 1885, and again in 1892 and 
1895-1900. 

Arch a structure composed of separate 
9 pieces, such as stones or bricks, 
having the shape of truncated wedges, ar¬ 
ranged on a curved line, so as to retain 



a, Abutments. i, Impost. p, Piers. 
v, Voussoirs or arch-stones. k, Keystone. 
S, Springers. In. Intrados. Ex. Extrados. 

their position by mutual pressure. The 
separate stones which composed the curve 
of an arch are called voussoirs or arch- 



Lancet. Horse-shoe. 


stones; the extreme or lowest voussoirs 
are termed springers, and the uppermost 
or central one is called the keystone. The 



Segmental. Semicircular. 


under or concave side of the voussoirs is 
called the intrados, and the upper or con¬ 
vex side the extrados of the arch. The 
supports which afford resting and resist¬ 


ing points to the arch are called piers and 
abutments. The upper part of the pier 
or abutment where the arch rests— 
technically where it springs from —is the 



impost. The span of an arch is in 
circular arches the length of its chord, 
and generally the width between the 
points of its opposite imposts whence it 
springs. The rise of an arch is the 
height of the highest point of its intrados 
above the line of the imposts; this point 
is sometimes called the under side of the 
crown, the highest point of the extrados 



Cycloidal. Elliptical. 


being the crown. Arches are designated 
in various ways, as from their shape 
(circular, elliptic, etc.), or from the re¬ 
semblance of the whole contour of the 
curve.to some familiar object (lancet arch, 
horse-shoe arch), or from the method used 
in describing the curve, as equilateral, 
three-centered, four-centered, ogee, and 



Types of Arches. 


Radiating arch. Horizontal arch. 

the like; or from the style of architecture 
to which they belong, as Roman, pointed, 
and Saracenic arches.— Triumphal arch, 
originally a simple decorated arch under 
which a victorious Roman general and 
army passed in triumph. At a later 
period the triumphal arch was a richly 
sculptured, massive, and permanent struc¬ 
ture. having an archway passing through 
it, with generally.a smaller arch on either 
side. The name is sometimes given to an 
arch, generally of wood decorated with 
flowers or evergreens, erected on occasion 
of some public rejoicing, etc. 

Archaean (&r-k§'an) Rocks (Gr. 

Lilian archaios, ancient), the 
oldest rocks of the earth’s crust, crystal¬ 
line in character, and embracing granite, 



































Archaeology 


Archbishop 


syenite, gneiss, mica-schist, etc., all de¬ 
void of fossil remains. These rocks un¬ 
derlie and are distinctly separate from the 
stratified and fossiliferous formations, 
which indeed have chiefly taken origin 
from them. 

Archaeology (a r : kg -°l'o-gi; Gr. ar- 

c haios, ancient, and 
logos , a discourse), the science which 
takes cognizance of the history of nations 
and peoples as evinced by the remains, 
architectural, implemental, or otherwise, 
which belong to the earlier epoch of their 
existence. In a more extended sense the 
term embraces every branch of knowledge 
which bears on the origin, religion, laws, 
language, science, arts, and literature of 
ancient peoples. It is to a great extent 
synonymous with prehistoric annals, as a 
large if not the principal part of its field 
of study extends over those periods in the 
history of the human race in regard to 
which we possess almost no information 
derivable from written records. Archae¬ 
ology divides the primeval period of the 
human race, more especially as exhibited 
by remains found in Europe, into the 
stone, the bronze, and the iron age, these 
names being given in accordance with the 
materials employed for weapons, imple¬ 
ments, etc., during the particular period. 
The stone age has been subdivided into 
the palceolithic and neolithic, the former 
being that older period in which the stone 
implements were not polished as they 
were in the latter and more recent period. 
The bronze age, which admits of a similar 
subdivision, is that in which implements 
were of copper or bronze. In this age 
the dead were burned and their ashes 
deposited in urns or stone chests, covered 
with conical mounds of earth or cairns of 
stones. Gold and amber ornaments ap¬ 
pear in this age. The iron age is that in 
which implements, etc., of iron begin to 
appear, although stone and bronze imple¬ 
ments are found along with them. The 
word age in this sense (as explained 
under Age) simply denotes the stage 
at which a people has arrived. The 
phrase stone age, therefore, merely marks 
the period before the use of bronze, the 
bronze age that before the employment of 
iron, among any specific people. 

Archaeopteryx i ar -^ e ' r 

bird from the oolitic limestone of 
Solenhofen, of the size of a rook, and dif¬ 
fering from all known birds in having two 
free claws representing the thumb and 
forefinger projecting from the wing, and 
about twenty tail vertebrae free and pro¬ 
longed as in mammals. 

ArrhanP’el (ark-an'jel; Gr. prefix, 
ill dicing ci arch ' denoting chief), an 

15—1 


angel of superior or of the highest rank. 
The only archangel mentioned by name 
in Scripture is Michael in the Epistle of 
Jude. 

Archangel (ark-an'jel), a seaport, 
capital of the Russian 
government of same name, on the right 
bank of the northern Dwina, about 20 
miles above its mouth in the White Sea. 
Below the town the river divides into 
several branches and forms a number of 
islands, on one of which, called Sollenbole, 
is the harbor. The houses are mostly of 
wood ; the place has some manufactures 
and an important trade, exporting linseed, 
flax, tow, tallow, trajn-oil, mats, timber, 
pitch and tar, etc. The port is closed 
for six months by ice. Archangel, found¬ 
ed in 1584, was long the only port which 
Russia possessed. Pop. 20.933. The 
province has an area of 331,490 sq. miles; 
pop. 1900, 350.000. 

Archbald 

sylvania, 10 miles n. e. of Scranton ; has 
rich mines of anthracite in its vicinity. 
It has extensive coal breakers, also has 
silk mills. Pop. 9194. 

Archbishop <arch-bish'o P y,_ a chief 

r bishop or bishop over 
other bishops; a metropolitan prelate. 
The establishment of this dignity is to be 
traced up to an early period of Chris¬ 
tianity, when the bishops and inferior 
clergy met in the capitals to deliberate on 
spiritual affairs, and the bishop of the 
city where the meeting was held presided. 
In England there are two (Protestant) 
archbishops—those of Canterbury and 
York; the former styled Primate of all 
England, the latter Primate of England. 
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the first 
peer of the realm, having precedence be¬ 
fore all great officers of the crown and 
all dukes not of royal birth. He crowns 
the sovereign, and when he is invested 
with his archbishopric he is said to be en¬ 
throned. He can grant special licenses to 
marry at any time or place, and can con¬ 
fer all the degrees that may be obtained 
from the universities. He is addressed 
by the titles of your grace and most 
reverend father in God, and writes him¬ 
self by divine vrovidence, while the bishop 
only writes by divine permission. The 
first Archbishop of Canterbury was Aug¬ 
ustine, appointed a.d. 598 by Ethelbert. 
Next in dignity is the Archbishop of York, 
between whom and the Archbishop of 
Canterbury the Lord High-chancellor of 
England has his place in precedency. The 
incomes of these two prelates are $75,000 
and $50,000, respectively. Scotland had 
two archbishops—those of St. Andrews 
and Glasgow. Ireland had four—Dublin, 



Archdeacon 


Arches 


Armagh, Tuam, and Cashel. In the ians, Persians, Parthians, excelled in the 
United States there are thirteen (Roman use of the bow; and while the Greeks and 
Catholic) archdioceses. Romans themselves made little use of it, 

Archdeacon (arch-de'kon), in Eng- they employed foreign archers as merce- 
xxi onucauun j anc ^ an ecclesiastical naries. Coming to much more recent 
dignitary next in rank below a bishop, times, we find the Swiss famous as 
who has jurisdiction either over a part of archers, but they generally used the 
or over the whole diocese. He is usually arbalist or cross-bow, and were no match 
appointed by the bishop, under whom he for their English rivals, who preferred 
performs various duties, and he holds a the long-bow. (See Bow.) The Eng- 
court which decides cases subject to an lish victories of Cr6cy, Poitiers, and 
appeal to the bishop. Agincourt, gained against apparently 

Arrhduke (arch-duke'), a prince be- overwhelming odds, may be ascribed to 
xxiL/iiu ^ longing to the reigning the bowmen. Archery disappeared gradu- 
family of Austria. ally as firearms came into use, and as an 

Archelaus (ar-ke-la'us), the name of instrument of war or the chase the bow 
■ CXAV ' AA several personages in an- is now confined to the most savage tribes 

cient history, one of whom was the son of both hemispheres. But though the 
of Herod the Great. He received from bow has long been abandoned among civ- 
Augustus the sovereignty of Judea, ilized nations as a military weapon, it is 
Samaria, and Idumea. The people, tired still cherished as an instrument of health- 



Assyrian Archer. Egyptian Archer with arrow-heads and stone-tipped reed arrow. 


of his tyrannical and bloody reign, ac¬ 
cused him before Augustus, who banished 
him to Gaul. 

Archer-fish a name s iven t0 tbe 

illLIiei libll, Tox6tes jaculator, a 

scaly-finned, acanthopterygian fish, about 

6 inches long, inhabiting the seas around 

Java, which has the faculty of shooting 

drops of water to the distance of 3 or 4 

feet at insects, thereby causing them to 

fall into the water, when it seizes and 

devours them. The soft and even the 

spiny portion of their dorsal fins is so 

covered with scales as to be scarcely 

distinguishable from the rest of the 

body. 

Archery (arch'e-ri), the art of shoot- 
J ing with a bow and arrow. 
The use of these weapons in war and the 
chase dates from the earliest antiquity. 
Ishmael, we learn from Gen., xxi, ‘ be¬ 
came an archer.’ The Egyptians, Assyr- 


ful recreation, encouraged by archery clubs 
or societies, which have been established 
in many parts of the world. The oldest, 
and by far the most historically important 
of the British societies, is the Royal Com¬ 
pany of Archers, called also the King’s 
Bodyguard for Scotland, formed origin¬ 
ally, it is said, by James I, but con¬ 
stituted in its present form by an act of 
the privy-council of Scotland in 1676. In 
recent years a number of clubs have been 
formed in the United States. Archery 
has the merit of forming a sport open to 
women as well as men. 

Arches (arch'es) Court, the chief 
■ n ‘ AA ' A and most ancient consistory 
court, belonging to the archbishopric of 
Canterbury, for the debating of spiritual 
causes. It is named from the church in 
London, St. Mary le Bow, or Bow Church 
(so called from a fine arched crypt), 
where it was formerly held. 











Archil 


Architecture 


Archil or Orchil (ar'kil, or'kil), a 
’ red, violet, or purple coloring 
matter obtained from various kinds of 
lichens, the most important of which are 
the Roccella tinctoria and the R. fuci- 
formift, natives of the rocks of the 
Canary and Cape de Verde islands, Mo¬ 
zambique and Zanzibar, South America, 
etc., and popularly called dyer’s moss. 
The dye is used for improving the tints 
of other dyes, as from its want of perma¬ 
nence it cannot be employed alone; but 
the aniline colors have largely superseded 
it. Cudbear and litmus are of similar 
origin. 

ArpTillnrhim ( ar-kil'o-kus ), of 

iircniiocnub Paros> one of the earli _ 

est Ionian lyric poets, the first Greek poet 
who composed iambic verses according to 
fixed rules. He flourished about 700 b.c. 
His iambic poems were renowned for 
force of style, liveliness of metaphor, and 
a powerful but bitter spirit of satire. In 
other lyric poems of a higher character 
he was also considered as a model. All 
his works are lost but a few fragments. 

Archimandrite 

an abbot or abbot-general, who has the 
superintendence of many abbots and con¬ 
vents. 

Archimedean <f c ^/^ 

for raising water, said to have been 
invented by Archimedes. It is formed by 
winding a tube spirally round a cylinder 
so as to have the form of a screw, or by 
hollowing out the cylinder itself into a 
double or triple threaded screw and in¬ 
closing it in a water-tight case. When 
the screw is placed in an inclined position 
and the lower end immersed in water, by 
causing the screw to revolve the water 
may be raised to a limited extent. 
ArplhimpHpS (ar-ki-me'dez), a cele- 

Arcmmeaeb brated ancient Greek 

physicist and geometrician, born at 
Syracuse, in Sicily, about 287 B.c. He 
enriched mathematics with discoveries of 
the highest importance, upon which the 
moderns have founded their admeasure¬ 
ments of curvilinear surfaces and solids. 
Archimedes is the only one among the 
ancients who has left us anything satis¬ 
factory on the theory of mechanics and on 
hydrostatics. He first taught the hydro¬ 
static principle to which his name is at¬ 
tached, ‘ that a body immersed in a fluid 
loses as much in weight as the weight 
of an equal volume of the fluid,’ and de¬ 
termined by means of it that an artist 
had fraudulently added too much alloy to 
a crown which King Hiero had ordered to 
be made of pure gold. He discovered the 
solution of this problem while bathing; 


and it is said to have caused him so much 
joy that he hastened home from the bath 
undressed, and crying out, Eureka! 
Eureka! ‘ I have found it, I have found 
it! ’ Practical mechanics also received a 
great deal of attention from Archimedes, 
who boasted that if he had a fulcrum or 
standpoint he could move the world. He 
is the inventor of the compound pulley, 
probably of the endless screw, the Archi¬ 
medean screw, etc. During the siege of 
Syracuse by the Romans he is said to 
have constructed many wonderful ma¬ 
chines with which he repelled their at¬ 
tacks, and he is stated to have set on fire 
their fleet by burning-glasses ! At the mo¬ 
ment when the Romans gained possession 
of the city by assault (212 b.c.) tradi¬ 
tion relates that Archimedes was slain 
by a soldier while he was sitting in the 
marketplace contemplating some math¬ 
ematical figures which he had drawn in 
the sand. 

Arp'hlPPlaP’O (ar-ki-pel'a-go) a term 

Aioiupeidgu originally applied t0 the 

JEgean, the sea lying between Greece and 
Asia Minor, then to the numerous islands 
situated therein, and latterly to any 
cluster of islands. In the Grecian Archi¬ 
pelago the islands nearest the European 
coast lie together almost in a circle, and 
for this reason are called the Cyclades 
(Gr. kyklos, a circle) ; those nearest the 
Asiatic, being farther from one another, 
the *S 'porades (‘scattered’). (See these 
articles, and 'Negropont, Scio, Samos, 
Rhodes, Cyprus, etc.) The Malay, In¬ 
dian, or Eastern Archipelago, on the east 
of Asia, includes Borneo, Sumatra, and 
other large islands. See Malay Archi¬ 
pelago. 

Architecture Ur-w-tect'or), > a 

“ v general sense, is the 

art of designing and constructing houses, 
bridges, and other buildings for the pur¬ 
poses of civil life; or, in a more limited 
but very common sense, that branch of 
the fine arts which has for its object the 
production of edifices not only convenient 
for their special purpose, but charac¬ 
terized by unity, beauty, and often grand¬ 
eur.—The first habitations of man were 
such as nature afforded, or cost little 
labor to the occupant—caves, huts, and 
tents. But as soon as men rose in civili¬ 
zation and formed settled societies they 
began to build more commodious and 
comfortable habitations. They bestowed 
more care on the materials, preparing 
bricks of clay or earth, which they at first 
dried in the air, but afterwards baked by 
fire; and subsequently they smoothed 
stones and joined them at first without, 
and subsequently with, mortar or cement. 
After they bad learned to build houses, 



Architecture 


Architecture 


they erected temples for their gods on a blocks of stone. In historic times the 
larger and more splendid scale than their Greeks developed an architecture of noble 
own dwellings. The Egyptians are the implicity and dignity. This style is of 
most ancient nation known to us among modern origin as compared with that of 

Egypt, but the earliest remains give 
indications that it was in part de¬ 
rived from the Egyptian. It is 
considered to have attained its 
greatest perfection in the age of 
Pericles, or about 460-430 b.c. The 
great masters of this period were 
Phidias, Ictinus, Callicrates, etc. 
All the extant buildings are more 
or less in ruins. The style is 
characterized by beauty, harmony, 
and simplicity in the highest de¬ 
gree. Distinctive of it are what 
are called the orders of architecture, 
by which term are understood cer¬ 
tain modes of proportioning and 
whom architecture had attained the char- decorating the column and its superim- 
acter of a fine art. Other ancient peoples posed entablature. The Greeks had three 
among whom it made great progress were orders, called respectively the Doric , 
the Babylonians, whose most celebrated Ionic , and Corinthian. (See articles 
buildings were temples, palaces, and under these names.) Greek buildings 
hanging-gardens; the Assyrians, whose were abundantly adorned with sculp- 
capital, Nineveh, was rich in splendid tures, and painting was extensively 
buildings; the Phoenicians, whose cities, used, the details of the structures be- 
Sidon, Tyre, etc., were adorned with equal ing enriched by different colors or tints, 
magnificence; and the Israelites, whose Lowness of roofs and the absence of 

temple was regarded as a wonder of archi- arches were distinctive features of Greek 
tecture. But comparatively few archi- architecture, in which, as in that of 

tectural monuments of these nations have Egypt, horizontality of line is another 
remained till our day. characteristic mark. The most remark- 

This is not the case with the architec- able public edifices of the Greeks were 
ture of Egypt, however, of which we temples, of which the most famous is the 
possess ample remains in the shape of Parthenon at Athens. Others exist in 

pyramids, temples, sepulchres, obelisks, various parts of Greece as well as in 

etc. Egyptian chronology is far from Sicily, Southern Italy, Asia Minor, etc., 
certain, but the greatest of the 
architectural monuments of the 
country, the pyramids of Ghizeh, 
are at least as old as 2800 or 
2700 b.c., and may be much older. 

The Egyptian temples had walls of 
great thickness and sloping on the 
outside from bottom to top; the 
roofs were flat, and composed of 
blocks of stone reaching from one 
wall or column to another. The col¬ 
umns were numerous, close, and 
very stout, generally without bases, 
and exhibiting great variety in the 
designs of their capitals. The prin¬ 
ciple of the arch, though known, 
was not employed for architectural 
purposes.. Statues of enormous 
size, sphinxes carved in stone, and 
on the walls sculptures in outline 
of deities and animals, with innum- Grecian Doric-Temple of Jupiter, at Olympia, 
erable hieroglyphics, are the decor¬ 
ative objects which belong to this style, where important Greek communities were 
The earliest architectural remains of early settled. Their theaters were semi- 
Greece are of unknown antiquity, and circular on one side and square on the 
consist of massive walls built of huge other, the semicircular part being usually 
























































































CONCRETE HOUSE 

This 14-room house at Wayne, Pennsylvania, was built of reinforced concrete at a cost of $8000, including the inside fixtures and finishing in mahogany-birch. The 

outside is whitewashed. 
























Architecture 


Architecture 


excavated in the side of some convenient residences are numerous, and the excava- 
hill. This part, the auditorium, was filled tions at Pompeii in particular have 
with concentric seats, and might be thrown great light on the internal ar- 
capable of containing 20,000 spectators, rangements of the Roman dwelling-house. 
A number exist in Greece, Sicily, Asia 
Minor, and elsewhere. No remains of 
private houses are known to exist. By 
the end of the Peloponnessian War (say 
400 B.c. ) the best period of Greek archi¬ 
tecture was over; a noble simplicity had 
given place to excess of ornament. After 
the death of Alexander the Great (323) 
the decline was still more marked. 

Among the Romans there was no orig¬ 
inal development of architecture as 
among the Greeks, though they early took 
the foremost place in the construction of 
such works of utility as aqueducts and 
sewers, the arch being in early and ex¬ 
tensive use among this people. As a fine 
art, however, Roman architecture had its 
origin in copies of the Greek models, all 



Byzantine—Church of our Lady, at Con¬ 
stantinople. 


the Grecian orders being introduced into Almost all the successors of Augustus em- 
Rome, and variously modified. Their bellished Rome more or less, erected splen- 
number, moreover, was augmented by the did palaces and temples, and adorned, like 
addition of two new orders—the Tuscan Hadrian, even the conquered countries 
and the Composite. The Romans became with them. But after the period of 
acquainted with the architecture of the Hadrian (117-138 a.d.) Roman archi- 
Greeks soon after 200 b.c., but it was tecture is considered to have been on the 
not till about two centuries later that the decline. The refined and noble style of 
architecture of Rome attained (under the Greeks was neglected, and there was 
Augustus) its greatest perfection. Among an attempt to embellish the beautiful 
the great works then erected were tern- more and more. This decline was all the 
pies, aqueducts, amphitheaters, magnifi- more rapid later on from the disturbed 
cent villas, triumphal arches, monumental state of the empire and the incursions of 
pillars, etc. The amphitheater differed the barbarians. 

from the theater in being a completely In Constantinople, after its virtual 
circular or rather elliptical building, filled separation from the Western Empire, 
on all sides with ascending seats for arose a style of art and architecture which 
spectators and leaving only the central was practised by 'the Greek Church dur- 
space, called the arena, for the combatants ing the whole of the middle asres. This 
and public shows. The Coliseum is a is called the Byzantine style. The church 
stupendous structure of this kind. The of St. Sophia at Constantinople, built by 

Justinian (reigned 527-565), offers 
the most typical specimen of the 
style, of which the fundamental 
principle was an application of the 
Roman arch, the dome being the 
most striking feature of the build¬ 
ing. In the most typical examples 
the dome or cupola rests on four 
pendentives. 

After the dismemberment of the 
Roman Empire the beautiful works 
of ancient architecture were largely 
destroyed by the Goths, Vandals, 
and other barbarians in Italy, 
Greece, Asia, Spain, and Africa; 
or what was spared by them was 
ruined by the fanaticism of the 
Christians. A new style of archi- 



Romau Corinthian—Temple of the Sun, at Rome. 


thermce , or baths, were vast structures tecture now arose, two forms of which, 
in which multitudes of people could bathe the Bombard and the Norman Ro- 
at once. Magnificent tombs were often manesque, form important phases of 
built by the wealthy. Remains of private art. The Lombard prevailed in North 



































































Architecture 


Architecture 


Italy and South Germany from the and Germany. Its striking character- 
eighth or ninth to the thirteenth century istics are its pointed arches, its pin- 
(though the Lombard rule came to an nacles and spires, its large buttresses, 
end in 774) ; the Norman Romanesque clustered pillars, vaulted roofs, profu¬ 
sion of ornament, and, on the whole, 
2 its lofty, bold character. Its most dis¬ 
tinctive feature, as compared with the 
Greek or the Egyptian style, is the 
predominance in it of perpendicular or 
rising lines, producing forms that convey 
the idea of soaring or mounting upwards. 
Its greatest capabilities have been best 
displayed in ecclesiastical edifices. The 
Gothic style is divided into four principal 
epochs; the Early Pointed, or general 
style of the thirteenth century; the 
Decorated, or style of the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury ; the Perpendicular, practised during 
the fifteenth and early part of the six- 



Details of Persian Architecture. 


flourished, especially in Normandy and teenth centuries; and the Tudor, or gen- 
England, from the eleventh to the middle eral style of the sixteenth century. This 
of the thirteenth century. The semi- style lasted in England up to the seven- 
circular arch is the most characteristic teenth century, being gradually displaced 
feature of this style. With the Lombard by that branch of the Renaissance or 
Romanesque were combined Byzantine modified revival of ancient Roman ar- 
features, and buildings in the pure chitecture which is known as the Eliza- 


Byzantine style were 


in 

also erected 


in 6 ethan style , and which is perhaps more 


Italy, as the Church of St. Mark at purely an English style than any other 
Venice. that can be named. 

The conquests of the Moors introduced The rise of the Renaissance style in 
a fresh style of architecture into Europe Italy is the greatest event in the history 
after the eighth century—the Moorish or of architecture after the introduction of 
Saracenic. This style accompanied the the Gothic style. The Gothic style had 
spread of Mohammedanism after its rise been introduced into the country and ex¬ 
in Arabia in the seventh century. The tensively employed, but had never been 
edifices erected by the Moors and Sara- thoroughly naturalized. The Renaissance 
cens in Spain, Egypt, and Turkey are dis- is a revival of the classic style based on 
tinguished, among other things, by a the study of the ancient models; and hav- 
peculiar form of the arch, which forms a ing practically commenced in Florence 
curve constituting rfiore 
than half of a circle or 
ellipse. A peculiar flow¬ 
ery decoration, called ara¬ 
besque , is a common orna¬ 
ment of this style, of 
which the building called 
the Alhambra (see Alham¬ 
bra) is perhaps the chief 
glory. 

The Germans were un¬ 
acquainted with architec¬ 
ture until the time of 
Charlemagne (or Charles 
the Great, 742-814). He 
introduced into Germany 
the Byzantine and Ro¬ 
manesque styles. After¬ 
wards the Moorish or Ara- 

fl 1 uence St ‘upon ha that 0 of the Romanesque-Cathedral of Worms. 

western nations, and thus originated about the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
the mixed style which maintained it- tury, it soon spread with great rapidity 
self till the middle of the thirteenth over Italy and the greater part of 
century. Then began the modern Gothic Europe. The most illustrious architects 
style, which grew up in France, England, of this early period of the style were 























































Architecture 


Archytas 


Brunelleschi, who built at Florence the 
dome of the cathedral, the Pitti Palace, 
etc., besides many edifices at Milan, Pisa, 
Pesaro, and Mantua; Alberti, who wrote 
an important work on architecture, and 
erected many admired churches; Bra- 
mante, w’ho began the building of St. 
Peter’s, Rome, and Michael Angelo, who 
erected its magnificent dome. On St. 
Peter’s were also employed Raphael, 
Peruzzi, and San Gallo. The noblest 
building in this style of architecture in 
Britain is St. Paul’s, London, the work of 
Sir Christopher Wren. 

Since the Renaissance period there has 
been no architectural development requir¬ 
ing special note. In edifices erected at 
the present day some one of the various 
styles of architecture is employed ac¬ 
cording to taste. Modern dwelling-houses 
have necessarily a style of their own so 
far as stories and apartments and win¬ 
dows and chimneys can give them one. In 
general the Grecian style, as handed down 
by Rome and modified by the Italian 
architects of the Renaissance, from its 
right angles and straight entablatures, is 
more convenient, and fits better with the 
distribution of our common edifices, than 
the pointed and irregular Gothic. But the 
occasional introduction of the Gothic out¬ 
line and the partial employment of its 
ornaments has undoubtedly an agreeable 
effect both in public and private edifices; 
and we are indebted to it, among other 
things, for the spire, a structure ex¬ 
clusively Gothic, which, though often mis¬ 
placed, has become an object of general 
approbation and a pleasing landmark to 
cities and villages. The works most 
characteristic of the present day are the 
grand bridges, viaducts, etc., in many of 
which iron is the sole or most charac¬ 
teristic portion of the material, and also 
the large and lofty mercantile buildings 
which are built upon a framework of 
steel columns and girders. 

To compare the different countries in 
regard to their success in the field of 
modern architecture would be difficult, in¬ 
asmuch as they have all produced archi¬ 
tectural works worthy of their advances 
in material prosperity, education, and 
taste. Nor have the United States, Can¬ 
ada, and the Australian colonies shown 
themselves backward in following the 
lead of the older countries of Europe. 
In America the increase in the number 
of handsome buildings has been very note¬ 
worthy since the termination of the civil 
war. 

A few words may be added on the 
architecture of India and China. Al¬ 
though many widely differing styles are 
to be found in India, the oldest and only 


true native style of Indian ecclesiastical 
architecture is the Buddhist, the earliest 
specimens dating to 250 b.c. Among the 
chief objects of Buddhist art are stupas 
or topes, built in the form of large 
towers, and employed as ddgobas to 
contain relics of Buddha or of some noted 
saint. Other works of Buddhist art are 
temples or monasteries excavated from 
the solid rock, and supported by pil¬ 
lars of the natural rock left in their 
places. Buddhistic architecture is found 
in Ceylon, Thibet, Java, etc., as well as in 
India. The most remarkable Hindu or 
Brahmanical temples are in Southern 
India. They are pyramidal in form, ris¬ 
ing in a series of stories. The Saracenic 
or Mohammedan architecture latterly in¬ 
troduced into India is of course of foreign 
origin. The Chinese have made the tent 
the elementary feature of their architec¬ 
ture ; and of their style any one may form 
an idea by inspecting the figures which 
are depicted upon common chinaware. 
Chinese roofs are concave on the upper 
side, as if made of canvas instead of wood. 
(For further information on the different 
subjects pertaining to architecture see 
separate articles on the different styles— 
Greek, Roman, Gothic, etc.—and such en¬ 
tries as Arch, Column, Aqueduct, Co¬ 
rinthian, Doric , Ionic, Theater, etc.) 

A vnTrifvmrP (ar'ki-trav), in architec- 

Arcnitrave ture ^ the part of an en _ 

tablature which rests immediately on 
the heads of the columns, being the lowest 
of its three principal divisions, the others 
being the frieze and the cornice. 

Archives (ar'klvz). See Records. 

AvnTviirnH- (ar'ki-volt), in architecture, 
iil V/Ill VU11 the ornamental band of 

mouldings on the face of an arch and 
following its contour. 

ArpTinnc (ar'konz), the chief magis- 
a trates of ancient Athens, 
chosen to superintend civil and religious 
concerns. They were nine in number; 
the first was properly the archon, or 
archon eponymos, by whose name the year 
was distinguished in the public records; 
the second was called archon basileus, 
or king archon, who exercised the func¬ 
tions of high-priest; the third, polem- 
archos, or general of the forces. The 
other six were called thesmothetai, or 
legislators. 

ArpTivtfl<s (ar-ki'tas). an ancient 
^ Greek mathe m a t i c i a n, 
statesman, and general, who flourished 
about 400 B.c.. and belonged to Tarentum, 
in Southern Italy. The invention of the 
analytic method in mathematics is as¬ 
cribed to him. as well as the solution of 
many geometrical and mechanical prob- 



Arcis-sur-Aube 


Arctic Regions 


lems. He constructed various machines 
and automata, among the most celebrated 
of which was his flying pigeon. He was 
a Pythagorean in philosophy, and Plato 
and Aristotle are said to have been both 
deeply indebted to him. Only incon¬ 
siderable fragments of his works are ex¬ 
tant. 

ArniQ-cnr-Anhe (ar-se-sur-ob), a 

iircis sur auuc gmall town of 

France, dep. Aube, at which, in 1814, 
was fought a battle between Napoleon 
and the allies, after which the latter 
marched to Paris. Pop. (1906) 2803. 

Avr> licriit that species of the electric 
AIL ilgni, light in which the illumi¬ 
nating source is a current of electricity 
passing between two sticks of carbon kept 
a short distance apart, one. of them being 
in connection with the positive, the other 
with the negative terminal of a battery 
or dynamo. A brilliant glow of light 
fills the space between the carbon poles. 
ArOO (& r 'ko), a town of Tirol, near 
‘“ ,AV/ Lake Garda, a favorite winter 
resort for invalids. Pop. about 4,000.. 
Arrnlp (ar'ko-la), a village in North 
ailuig j ta ] y . miles s. e. of Verona, 

celebrated for the battles of Nov. 15, 
16, and 17, 1796, fought between the 
French under Bonaparte and the Aus¬ 
trians, in which the latter were defeated 
with great slaughter. 

Arcos de la Frontera ( 1 | r ^ r ® s n . t ^! 

ra), a city of Spain, 30 miles e. by N. 
from Cadiz, on the Guadalete, here 
crossed by a stone bridge, on a sand¬ 
stone rock 570 feet above the level of the 
river. On the highest part of the rock 
stands the castle of the dukes of Arcos. 
partly in ruins. The principal manufac¬ 
tures are leather, hats, and cordage. Pop. 
13,926. 

Arnnf (&r-kot'), two districts and a 
AILUI S mall town of India, with¬ 
in the Presidency of Madras. North 
Arcot is an inland district with an area 
of 7,256 sq. m. The country is partly flat 
and partly mountainous, where inter¬ 
sected by the Eastern Ghats.— South Ar¬ 
cot lies on the Bay of Bengal, and has 
two seaports, Caddalor and Porto Novo. 
Pop. about 4,500,000.—The town of 
Arcot is in North Arcot, on the Palar, 
about 70 miles w. by s. of Madras. There 
is a military cantonment at 3 miles’ dis¬ 
tance. The town contains handsome 
mosques, a nabob’s palace in ruins, and 
the remains of an extensive fort. Arcot 
played an important part in the wars 
which resulted in the ascendency of the 
British in India. It was taken by Clive, 
31st August, 1751, and heroically de¬ 
fended by him against an apparently over¬ 


whelming force under Rajah Sahib. Pop. 
about 12,000. 

Arp+i P (ark'tik), an epithet given to 
t h e uorth p 0 i e f r0 m the prox¬ 
imity of the constellation of the Bear, in 
Greek called arktos. The Arctic Circle 
is an imaginary circle on the globe, 
parallel to the equator, and 23° 28' dis¬ 
tant from the north pole. This and its 
opposite, the Antarctic , are called the two 
polar circles. 

Arctic Expeditions. 

pcditions. 

Arrtir Orpan that part of the 
ArCIlC UCean > water surface of the 
earth which surrounds the north pole, 
and washes the northern shores of Eu¬ 
rope, Asia, and America; its southern 
boundary roughly coinciding with the 
Arctic Circle (lat. 66° 32' n.). It in¬ 
closes many large islands, and contains 
large bays and gulfs which deeply indent 
the northern shores of the three conti¬ 
nents. Its great characteristic is ice, 
which is nearly constant everywhere, 
though many parts of it are navigable in 
the brief summer season. 

Arctic Regions, & 

extending from the pole on all sides to the 
Arctic Circle in lat. 66° 32' n. The 
Arctic or North Polar Circle just touches 
the northern headlines of Iceland, cuts 
off the southern and narrowest portion of 
Greenland, crosses Fox Strait north of 
Hudson Bay, whence it goes over the 
American continent to Bering Strait. 
Thence it runs to Obdorsk at the mouth 
of the Obi, then crossing northern Russia, 
the White Sea, and the Scandinavian 
Peninsula, returns to Iceland. It was 
long held as probable that the north pole 
was surrounded by an open sea. The sea 
is there, but it proves to be a frozen 
one, the Arctic Ocean having been widely 
investigated and the north pole reached 
in 1909 by a sledge journey across the 
ice. Valuable minerals, fossils, etc., have 
been discovered within the Arctic regions. 
In the archipelago north of the American 
continent excellent coal frequently occurs. 
The mineral cryolite is mined in Green¬ 
land. Fossil ivory (the tusks of the mam¬ 
moth, Elephas primiqenius) is obtained 
in islands at the mouth of the Lena. In 
Scandinavia, parts of Siberia, and north¬ 
west. America, the forest region extends 
within the Arctic Circle. The most char¬ 
acteristic of the natives of the Arctic 
regions are the Eskimos. The most 
notable animals are the white or polar 
bear, the musk-ox, the reindeer, and the 
whalebone whale. Fur-bearing animals 
are numerous. The most intense cold ever 




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Arctium 


Areolar 


registered in those regions was 74° below 
zero Fahr. The aurora borealis is a 
brilliant phenomenon of Arctic nights. 
See North Polar Expeditions. 

Arctium (ark'-ti-um). See Burdock. 


Arctomys (ark'to-mis). See Marmot. 

Arp+nrn<a (&rk-tu'rus), a fixed star of 
IXILlUlua the firgt ma g nitude in the 

constellation of Bootes. It is so called be¬ 
cause it is situated near the tail of the 
Bear, which its name signifies. It is a 
noticeable object in the northern heavens. 
ArrlaVifm (ar-da-han'), a small forti- 

iiraanan fied town about 6400 feet 

above the sea, between Kars and Battim, 
in Russian Armenia. It was captured 
by the Russians in 1877, and ceded to 
them by the Berlin treaty, 1878. 

Ardea ( ar 'de-a), the genus to which 
the heron belongs, type of the 
family Ardeidae, which includes also 
cranes, storks, bitterns, etc. 

Ardebil or Ardabil (ar-de-tbel') a 
* Persian town, province of 
Azerbijan, near the Karasu, a tributary 
of the Aras, about 40 m. from the Cas¬ 
pian, in an elevated and healthy situa¬ 
tion ; it has mineral springs and a con¬ 
siderable trade. Pop. about 16,000. 
Ardpplip (ar-dash), a dep. in the 
south of France (Langue¬ 
doc), on the west side of the Rhone, tak¬ 
ing its name from the river Ardfcche, 
w T hich rises within it, and falls into the 
Rhone after a course of 46 miles; area, 
2134 sq. miles. It is generally of a 
mountainous character, and contains the 
culminating point of the Cevennes. Silk 
and wine are produced. Annonay is the 
principal town, but Privas is the capital. 
Pop. (1906 ) 347,140. 

Ardpnnpq (ar-den'). an extensive 
Araennes tract of hilly land stretch¬ 
ing over a large portion of the north¬ 
east of France and southwest of Belgium. 
Anciently the whole tract formed one im¬ 
mense forest ( Arduenna Silva of Caesar) : 
but though extensive districts are still 
under wood, large portions are now oc¬ 
cupied by cultivated fields and populous 
towns. 

Ardennes (ar-den'), a frontier de¬ 
partment in the northeast 
of France; area, 2028 sq. miles, partly 
consisting of the Forest of Ardennes. 
There, are extensive slate-quarries, numer¬ 
ous ironworks, and important manu¬ 
factures of cloth, ironware, leather, glass, 
earthenware, etc. Chief towns, Mezi^res 
(the capital) and Sedan. Pop. 317,505. 
ArdmorP (ard'mor), a town of Okla¬ 
homa, in the Chickasaw 
section of the former Indian Territorv. 


Has coal mines and asphalt deposits in 
its vicinity. Pop. 8,618. 

Ardnamurchan ( P “’ m t j; e r ' k £ 0 “t 

westerly point of the island of Great 
Britain, in Argyllshire, having a light¬ 
house, 180 feet above sea-level, visible 
for a distance of 18 to 20 miles. 
Ardorh (ar'dok), a parish in South 
Perthshire, celebrated for its 
Roman remains, one a camp, being the 
most perfect existing in Scotland. 
Ar/Ivnccan (ar-dros'san), a seaport 
AlUIUbbdii of Scotland, in Ayrshire, 
on the Firth of Clyde, with a good and 
spacious harbor, from which coal and 
iron are extensively exported. Pop. 5,933. 
Are ( Rr )’ un ^ French land 

measure, equal to 100 square 
meters, or 1,076.44 square feet. A 
hectare is 100 ares, equal to 2.47 acres. 
Area < a ' re - a )> superficial content of 
a any figure or space, the quantity 
of surface it contains in terms of any 
unit. 


Areca ( a " r e'ka), a genus of lofty palms 
with pinnated leaves and a 
drupe-like fruit enclosed in a fibrous rind. 
A. Catechu of the Coromandel and Mala¬ 
bar coasts is the common areca palm 
which yields areca or betel nuts, and also 
the astringent juice catechu. A. oleracea 
is the cabbage-tree or cabbage-palm of 
the West Indies. With lime and the 
leaves of the betel-pepper, the areca-nuts 
when green form the celebrated masti¬ 
catory of the East. They are an im¬ 
portant article in Eastern trade. 
Arppihn (a-re-the'bo), a seaport town 
mcuuu on the north coast of the is¬ 
land of Porto Rico. Pop. (1910) 9612. 

Areiopagus. See Areopagus. 


Arena (a-re'na), the enclosed space 
in the central part of the Ro¬ 
man amphitheaters, in which took place 
the combats of gladiators or wild beasts. 
It was usually covered with sand or saw¬ 
dust to prevent the gladiators from slip¬ 
ping and to absorb the blood. 

Arendal ( ar 'en-dal), a seaport of 
Southern Norway, exporting 
quantities of timber and iron and owning 
numerous ships. Pop. 11.130. 
Arenicola (&r-en-ik'o-la). See Lot- 
worm. 

Areolar (a-re'-o-lar) Tissue, an as- 
^ semblage of fibers and lam¬ 
inae pervading every part of the animal 
structure, and connected with oach other 
so as to form innumerable small cavities, 
by means of which the various organs and 
parts of organs are connected together: 
colled also Cellular Tissue and Conneetive 
Tissue. —In botany the term is sometimes 



Areometer 


Argali 


applied to the won-vascular substance, 
composed entirely of untransformed cells, 
which forms the soft substance of plants. 
Aroameter (a-re-om'e-t e r ; from 

Areometer Greek arai0Sf thin 

metron , a measure), an instrument for 

measuring the specific gravity of liquids; 

a hydrometer (which see). 

ArPOIlflP’llS (&r-e-op'a-gus), the old- 
xiicupagua egt of the Athenian C0U rts 

of justice. It obtained its name from its 
place of meeting, on the Hill of Ares 
(Mars), near the citadel. It existed 
from very remote times, and the crimes 
tried before it were wilful murder, poison¬ 
ing, robbery, arson, dissoluteness of 
morals, and innovations in the state and 
in religion. Its meetings were held in the 
open air, and its members were selected 
from those who had held the office of 
archon. 

Arennirifl (a-ra-ke'pa), a city of Peru, 
.£11 Uipd, 200 miles south of Cuzco. 

situated in a fertile valley, 7,850 feet 
above sea level. Before 
the earthquake of 1868, ^ 

which almost totally de¬ 
stroyed it, it was one of 
the best-built towns of 
South America. Behind 
the city rises the volcano 
of Arequipa, or Peak of 
Mist6 (20,328 feet). A 
considerable trade is car- 
ried on through Mollendo, 
which has superseded Is¬ 
lay as the port of Are¬ 
quipa, and is connected 
with it by railway. Pop. 
about 35,000. 

AreS Oj'rez). See 

Mars. 

Arethusa (A r ; e ‘ th 

s a), in 

Greek mythology, a Arezzo-Palazzo 
daughter of Nereus and 
Doris, a nymph, changed by Artemis into 
a fountain in order to free her from the 
pursuit of the river-god Alpheus. 
Aretino (a-ra-te'no), Guido. See 

ixuido. 

Aretino. PlETR0 > Italian poet, born at 
9 Arezzo, 1492, died at Venice, 
1557; the natural son of a nobleman 
called Luigi Bacci. He early displayed 
a talent for satirical poetry, and when 
still a young man was banished from 
Arezzo on account of a sonnet against 
indulgences. He went to Perugia, and 
thence to Rome (1517), where he se¬ 
cured the papal patronage, but sub¬ 
sequently lost it through writing licen¬ 
tious sonnets. Through the influence of 
the Medici family he found an opportu¬ 
nity to insinuate himself into the favor of 


Francis I. In 1527 Aretino went to 
Venice, where he acquired powerful 
friends, among them the Bishop of 
Vicenza. By his devotional writings lie 
regained the favor of the Roman court. 
The obscenity of some of his writings 
was such that his name has become 
proverbial for licentiousness. Among 
them are five comedies and a trag¬ 
edy. 

ArP 77 H (a-ret'so, anc. Arretium ), a 
city of Central Italy, capital 
of a province of the same name in Tus¬ 
cany, near the confluence of the Chiana 
with the Arno. It has a noble cathedral, 
containing some fine pictures and monu¬ 
ments ; remains of an ancient amphi¬ 
theater, etc. It was one of the twelve 
chief Etruscan towns, and in later times 
fought long against the Florentines, to 
whom it had finally to succumb. It is 
the birthplace of Maecenas, Petrarch, 
Pietro Aretino, Redi, and Vasari. Pop. 
16,780.—The province of Arezzo con¬ 



della Fraternita and Church of Santa Maria. 

tains 1,276 square miles and 275,588 
inhabitants. 

Ar'ffal Aegol, or Tartar, a hard crust 
® > formed on the sides of ves¬ 

sels in which wine has been kept, red 
or white according to the color of the 
wine. It is an impure bitartrate of 
potassium, and is of considerable use 
among dyers as a mordant. When puri¬ 
fied it forms cream of tartar (which 
see). 

ArgRla (&r'ga-la), See Adjutant-bird. 

Arffali (ar'ga-li). a species of wild 
& sheep (Caprovis Argali or 
Ovis ammon) found on the mountains 
of Siberia, Central Asia, and Kam- 
tchatka. It is 4 feet high at the shoul¬ 
ders, and proportionately stout in its 













Argali 


Argentine 


build, with horns nearly 4 feet in length 
measured along the curve, and at their 
base about 19 inches in circumference. 
It lives in small herds. 

ArVall S IR Samuel, one of the early 
° ’ English adventurers to Vir¬ 

ginia, born about 1572, died 1639. He 
planned and executed the abduction of 
Pocahontas, the daughter of the Indian 
chief Powhatan, in order to secure the 
ransom of English prisoners. He was 
deputy-governor of Virginia (1617- 
1619), and was accused of many acts of 
rapacity and tyranny. In 1620 he 
served in an expedition against Algiers, 
and was knighted by James I. 

Arsran (ar'gan), a low, spiny ever- 
& green tree of the natural or¬ 
der Sapotacese, found in southern 
Morocco. It bears an ovate drupe about 
the size of a plum, with white, milky 
juice. The Moors extract from this 
fruit an oil which they use with their 
food. 


A reran d (ar'gand) Lamp, a lamp 
® named after its inventor, 

Aim6 Argand, a Swiss chemist and physi¬ 
cian (born 1755, died 1803), the dis¬ 
tinctive feature of which is a burner 
forming a ring or hollow cylinder covered 
by a chimney, so that the flame receives 
a current of air both on the inside and 
on the outside. 


Argaum 


a village of 
India, in Berar, celebrated 
for the victory of General Wellesley 
(Duke of Wellington) over the Mahrat- 
tas under Scindia and the Rajah of 
Berar, 29th November, 1803. 

Arp’planflpr (ar'je-lan-der), Fried- 
XllgCld-liUCl. RICH W ILHELM AUGUST, 

an eminent German astronomer, born at 
Memel, 1790, died 1875; director succes¬ 
sively of the observatories of Abo and 
of Helsingfors; appointed professor of 
astronomy at Bonn, 1837, where he 
superintended the erection of a new ob¬ 
servatory, catalogued over 320,000 stars, 
and produced several important astronom¬ 
ical works. 


ArP’emOTie (ar-jem'o-ne), a small 
Xllgcinunc genug Qf ornamental 

American plants of the poppy order. 
From the seeds of A. Mexicdna is ob¬ 
tained an oil very useful to painters. 
The handsomest species is A. grandiflora, 
which has large flowers of a pure white 
color. 


ArP’prKOifl (ar-ften-so'la), Lupercio 
iilgen&uid and Bartolome Leon¬ 
ardo de, brothers, the ‘ Horaces of 
Spain,’ born at Barbastro, in Aragon, 
the former in 1565, died in 1613; the 
latter born in 1566, died in 1631. Luper- 
cio produced tragedies and lyric poems; 


Bartolome a number of poems and a 
history of the Conquest of the Moluccas. 
Their writings are singularly alike in 
character, and are reckoned among the 
Spanish classics. 


Argenson 

Comte d\ celebrated French statesman, 
born in 1696, died in 1764. After holding 
a number of subordinate offices he be¬ 


came minister for foreign affairs, and 
succeeded in bringing about the Congress 
of Breda, which was the prelude to that 
of Aix-la-Chapelle. He was present at 
the battle of Fontenoy, and was exiled 
to his estate for some years through the 
machinations of Madame Pompadour. 
His Considerations sur le Gouvernement 
de la France , was a very advanced study 
on the possibility of combining with a 
monarchic form of government demo¬ 
cratic principles and local self-govern¬ 
ment. Les Essais, ou Loisirs d'un Min- 
istre d'Etat, published in 1785, is a 
collection of characters and anecdotes in 
the style of Montaigne. 

Areent (ar'jent), in coats of arms, 
® the heraldic term express¬ 

ing silver: represented in engraving by 
a plain white surface. 


Arcrpn+p (ar-jen'ta), a city of Pulaski 
xxigciiLct Co., Arkansas, on the n. 
bank of the Arkansas River, nearly op¬ 
posite Little Rock. It has railroad 
machine shops and other industries. Pop. 
11,138. 

Arp’pntfln (ar-zhan-tan), a French 
gen tan town> dep of 0rne (Nor . 

mandy), with an old castle and some 
manufactures. Pop. (1906) 5072. 

Ar^enteuil (ar-zhiin-teu-ye). a 

nigcntcuu tQwn in France> dep 

Seine-et-Oise, 7 miles below Paris; has 
an active trade in wine, fruit, and vege¬ 
tables. Pop. (1906) 17,330. 


Arerentiera (a r-j e n-t i-e'r a), or 
® KI mo li (ancient 

Cimdlus), an island in the Grecian 
archipelago, one of the Cyclades, about 
18 miles in circumference, rocky and 
sterile. Produces a detergent chalk 
called Cimolian earth, used in washing 
and bleaching. 


Argentine (ar'jen-ten), a silvery- 
5 white slaty variety of 

ealespar, containing a little silica with 
laminae usually undulated. It is found 
in primitive rocks and frequently in 
metallic veins.—Argentine is also the 
name of a small European fish ( Scopelus 
horedlis) less than 2 inches long and of 
a silvery color. 

Argentine (ar'jen-tin) Republic, 
° formerly called the 

United Provinces of La Plata, now 



Argentine 


Argentine 


popularly known as Argentina, a vast 
country of South America, the extreme 
length of which is 2,400 miles, and the 
average breadth a little over 700 miles, 
the total area comprising 1,113,850 sq. 
miles. It is bounded on the N. by Boli¬ 
via ; on the e. by Paraguay, Brazil, Uru¬ 
guay, and the Atlantic; on the s., 
by the Antarctic Ocean; and on the w. 
by the Andes. It comprises four great 
natural divisions: (1) the Andine 

region, containing the provinces of 
Mendoza, San Juan, Rioja, Catamarca, 
Tucuman, Salta, and Jujuy; (2) the 

Pampas, containing the provinces of 
Santiago, Santa Fe, Cordova, San Luis, 
and Buenos Ayres; with the territories 
Formosa, Pampa, and Chaco; (3) the 
Argentine Mesopotamia, between the 
rivers Parang, and Uruguay, containing 
the provinces of Entre Rios and Cor- 
rientes, and the territory Misiones; (4) 
Patagonia, including the eastern half of 
Tierra del Fuego. With the exception 
of the n. w., where lateral branches of 
the Andes run into the plain for 150 
or 200 miles, and the province of Entre 
Rios, which is hilly, the characteristic 
feature of the country is the great monot¬ 
onous and level plains called ‘ pampas,’ 
In the north these plains are partly forest- 
covered, but all the central and southern 
parts present vast treeless tracts, which 
afford pasture to immense herds of 
horses, oxen, and sheep, and are varied 
in some places by brackish swamps, in 
others by salt steppes. The great water¬ 
course of the country is the Parang, hav¬ 
ing a length of fully 2,000 miles from its 
source in the mountains of Goyaz, Bra¬ 
zil, to its junction with the Uruguay, 
where begins the estuary of La Plata. 
The Parang is formed by the union of 
the Upper Parang and Paraguay rivers, 
near the n. e. corner of the State. Im¬ 
portant tributaries are the Pilcomayo, 
the Vermejo, and the Salado. The 
Parang, Paraguay, and Uruguay .are 
valuable for internal navigation. Many 
of the streams which tend eastward ter¬ 
minate in marshes and salt lakes, some 
of which are rather extensive. Not con¬ 
nected with the La Plata system are the 
Colorado and the Rio Negro, forming the 
northern boundary of Patagonia. The 
source of the Negro is Lake Nahuel 
Huapi, in Patagonia (area, 1,200 sq. 
miles), in the midst of magnificent 
scenery. The level portions of the coun¬ 
try are mostly of tertiary formation, 
and the river and coast regions consist 
mainly of alluvial soil of great fertility. 
In the pampas clay have been found the 
fossil remains of extinct mammalia, some 
of them of colossal size. 


European grains and fruits, includ¬ 
ing the vine, have been successfully in¬ 
troduced, and are cultivated to some 
extent in most parts of the republic, 
but the great wealth of the State lies in 
its countless herds of cattle and horses 
and flocks of sheep, which are pastured 
on the pampas, and which multiply 
there very rapidly. Gold, silver, nickel, 
copper, tin, lead, and iron, besides mar¬ 
ble, jasper, precious stones, and bitumen, 
are found in the mountainous districts 
of the N. w., while petroleum wells have 
been discovered on the Rio Vermejo; 
but the development of this mineral 
wealth has hitherto been greatly re¬ 
tarded by the want of proper means of 
transport. The most extensive forests 
in the State are in the region of the 
Gran Chaco (which extends also into 
Bolivia), where there is known to be 
60,000 sq. miles of timber. Cacti and 
thistles form great thickets in parts of 
the country. Peach and apple trees are 
abundant in some districts. The native 
fauna includes the puma, the jaguar, the 
tapir, the llama, the alpaca, the vicuna, 
armadillos, the rhea or nandu, a species 
of ostrich, etc. The climate is agree¬ 
able and healthy, 97° being about the 
highest temperature experienced. Agri¬ 
culture has of late years made great 
progress, large and increasing quantities 
of cotton, wheat, sugar-cane, tobacco, oats, 
maize, etc., being grown. The wheat crop 
is of especial importance, reaching about 
200,000,000 bushels and fast increasing. 
The manufactures include flour, cloths, 
blankets, and large establishments for 
meat packing, etc. 

As a whole, this vast country is very 
thinly inhabited, some parts of it as 
yet being very little known. The native 
Indians were never very numerous, and 
have given little trouble to the European 
settlers. Tribes of them yet in the 
savage state still inhabit the less known 
districts, and live by hunting and fish¬ 
ing. Some of the Gran Chaco tribes are 
said to be very fierce, and European 
travelers have been killed by them. The 
European element is strong in the re¬ 
public, more than half the population 
being Europeans or of pure European de¬ 
scent. Large numbers of immigrants 
arrive from Southern Europe, the Ital¬ 
ians having the preponderance among 
those of foreign birth. The typical in¬ 
habitants of the pampas are the Gauchos , 
a race of half-breed cattle-rearers and 
horse-breakers; they are almost contin¬ 
ually on horseback galloping over the 
plains, collecting their herds and droves, 
taming wild horses, or catching and 
slaughtering cattle. In such occupations 



Argentine 


Argo-Navis 


they require a marvellous dexterity in 
the use of the lasso and bolas. 

The river La Plata was discovered 
in 1512 by the Spanish navigator Juan 
Diaz de Solis, and the La Plata territory 
had been brought into the possession of 
Spain by the end of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury. In 1810 the territory cast off the 
Spanish rule, and in 1816 the inde¬ 
pendence of the United States of the 
Rio de la Plata was formally declared, but 
it was long before a settled government 
was established. The present consti¬ 
tution dates from 1853, being subsequent¬ 
ly modified. The executive power is 
vested in a president—elected by the rep¬ 
resentatives of the fourteen provinces 
for a term of six years. A national con¬ 
gress of two chambers—a senate and a 
house of deputies—wields the legisla¬ 
tive authority, and the republic is mak¬ 
ing rapid advances in social and political 
life. The external commerce is important, 
the chief exports being wheat, corn, wool, 
skins, and hides, frozen beef and mutton, 
tallow, bones, and flax. The wheat ex¬ 
port is very large, rivalling or exceed¬ 
ing that of the United States. The im¬ 
ports are chiefly manufactured goods. 
The trade is largely with Britain and 
France. Pop., 1905, 5,678,197. 
Avrron-Hnp (ar'jen-tln), a suburb of 

211 gen line Kansas Cityj Mo Here 

are large gold and silver smelting works 
and iron shops. 

ArcrPYifitp (ar'jen-tit), sulphide of 
silver, a blackish or lead- 
gray mineral, a valuable ore of silver 
found in the crystalline rocks of many 
countries. 

Argillaceous <£?«£■>,* ° w c h f ch s 

clay prevails (including shales and 
slates). 

A ro*! vpq (ar^jlvz), or Argivi, the m- 
A1 ° AVCS habitants of Argos; used by 
Homer and other ancient authors as 
a generic appellation for all the 
Greeks. 

Ar'go. See Argonauts. 


Ar'gol. See Argal. 

Ar'ffOn a gas rat ^ er heavier than 
** ® 9 nitrogen, found in the air in 

very small quantity in 1894, by Prof. 
Ramsey and Lord Rayleigh. Its pro¬ 
portions are 1 of argon to 100 of air. 
Its marked property is its inactivity— 
hence the name. One way of obtaining 
this element is by passing air over 
heated copper, which combines with the 
oxygen, then over heated magnesium, 
which combines with the nitrogen, leav¬ 
ing the argon. 


Argonaut <£*****}. 


a mollus¬ 
cous animal of the genus 
Argonauta , belonging to the dibranchiate 
or two-gilled cuttle-fishes, distinguished 
by the females possessing a single-cham¬ 
bered external shell, not organically con¬ 
nected with the body of the animal 
The males have no shell and are of much 
smaller size than the females. The shell 
is fragile, translucent, and boat-like in 
shape; it serves as the receptacle of the 
ova or eggs of the female, which sits 
in it with the respiratory tube or ‘ fun- 



Argonaut (Argonauta Argo). 


nel ’ turned towards the carina or ‘ keel.* 
This famed mollusc swims only by eject¬ 
ing water from its funnel, and it can 
crawl in a reversed position, carrying its 
shell over its back like a snail. The 
account of its floating on the surface of 
the sea, with its sail-shaped arms ex¬ 
tended, to catch the breeze, and with 
the six other arms as oars, is a mere 
fable. The argonaut, or paper nautilus , 
must be carefully distinguished from the 
pearly nautilus or nautilus proper ( Nau¬ 
tilus Pampilius). 

A remnants in the legendary history 

2irgunduis>, of Greece5 those heroes 

who performed a hazardous voyage to 

Colchis, a far-distant country at the 

eastern extremity of the Euxine (Black 

Sea), with Jason in the ship Argo, for 

the purpose of securing a golden fleece, 

which was preserved suspended upon a 

tree, and under the guardianship of a 

sleepless dragon. By the aid of Medea, 

daughter of the King of Colchis, Jason 

was enabled to seize the fleece, and after 

many strange adventures, to reach his 

home at Iolcos in Thessaly. Among the 

Argonauts were Hercules, Castor and 

Pollux, Orpheus and Theseus. 

Arem-TTnvis southern constella- 
211 go xi ctVlO; tion of the ghip ^ contain _ 

ing 9 clusters, 3 nebulae, 13 double and 








Argonne 


Argyle 


540 single stars, of which about 64 are 
visible. 

ArP’Orme (ar-gon'), a district of 
xiigunne p rance> on the Belgium 

frontier, through which pass the rivers 
Meuse, Marne, and Aisne. It is cele¬ 
brated for the campaign of Dumouriez 
against the Prussians in 1792, and for the 
military movements and actions which 
took place therein previous to the battle 
of Sedan, in 1870. 

Arcrnct (ar'gos), a town of Greece, in 
ziigua the northeast of the Peloponne¬ 
sus, between the gulfs of iEgina and 
Nauplia or Argos, Pop. 9980. This town 
and the surrounding territory of Argolis 
were famous from the legendary period 
of Greek history onwards, the territory 
containing, besides Argos, Mycenae, where 
Agamemnon ruled, with a kind of sover¬ 
eignty, over all the Peloponnesus. 
Ara’rwtnli (ar-gos'to-li), a city of the 
xligUbLUIl j on j an islands, capital of 

Cephalonia, and the residence of a Greek 
bishop. Pop. 9241. 

A rcrrxiv (ar'go-si), a poetical name 
£ or a i ar g e merchant ves¬ 
sel ; derived from Ragusa, a port which 
was formerly more celebrated than now, 
and whose vessels did a considerable 
trade with England. 

Arp’nt ( Fr > argo), the jargon, slang, 
ai o ul or peculiar phraseology of a 
class or profession, originally the conven¬ 
tional slang of thieves and vagabonds, 
invented for the purpose of disguise and 
concealment. 

Ar 0*111 m or Abgtjin (&r-gwim\ ar- 
■*11 g uiiii, gwin'), a small island on the 
west coast of Africa, not far from Cape 
Blanco, formerly a center of trade the 
possession of which was violently dis¬ 
puted by the Portuguese, Dutch, English 
and French. 

Armimpnt (Ar'gu-ment), a term 
& sometimes used as synony¬ 

mous with the subject of a discourse, 
but more frequently appropriated to 
any kind of method employed for the 
purpose of confuting or at least silencing 
an opponent. Logicians have reduced 
arguments to a number of distinct heads, 
such as the argumentum ad judicium, 
which founds on solid proofs addresses 
to the judgment; the argumentum ad 
verecundiam, which appeals to the 
modesty or bashfulness of an opponent by 
reminding him of the great names or 
authorities by whom the view disputed 
by him is supported ; the argumentum ad 
ignorantiam, the employment of some 
logical fallacy towards persons likely to 
be deceived by it; and the argumentum ad 
hominem , an argument which presses a 
man with consequences drawn from his 


own principles and concessions, or his 
own conduct. 

Arcni^ (ar'gus), in Greek mythology, 
xii gus a f a 5 u ious being, said to have 
had a hundred eyes, placed by Juno to 
guard Io. Hence 4 argus-eyed,’ applied to 
one who is exceedingly watchful. 

Argus-pheasant a gi h%t 

beautiful, and very singular species of 
pheasant, found native in the southeast 
of Asia, more especially in Sumatra and 
some of the other islands. The males 
measure from 5 to 6 feet from the tip of 
the beak to the extremity of the tail, 
which has two greatly elongated central 
feathers. The plumage is exceedingly 
beautiful, the secondary quills of the 
wings, which are longer than the pri¬ 
mary feathers, being each adorned with 
a series of ocellated or eye-like spots 
(whence the name—see Argus) of bril¬ 
liant metallic hues. The general body 
plumage is brown. 

Arfrvle or Argyll (ar-gil'), an ex- 
tensive county in the south¬ 
west of the Highlands of Scotland, con¬ 
sisting partly of mainland and partly 
of islands belonging to the Hebrides 
group, the chief of which are Islay, Mull. 
Jura, Tiree, Coll, Rum, Lismore, and 
Colonsay, with Iona and Staflfa. On the 
land side the mainland is bounded north 
by Inverness; east by Perth and Dum¬ 
barton : elsewhere surrounded by the 
Firth of Clyde and its connections and 
the sea; area, 3255 sq. m. of which 
the islands comprise about 1000 sq. m. 
It is greatly indented by arms of the sea, 
which penetrate far inland. The main¬ 
land is divided into the six districts of 
Northern Argyle, Lorn, Argyle, Cowal, 
Knapdale. and Kintyre. The county is 
exceedingly mountainous and has several 
lakes, the principal of which is Loch 
Awe. Cattle and sheep are reared in 
numbers, and fishing is largely carried 
on, as is also the making of whisky. 
There is but little arable land. The chief 
minerals are slate, marble, limestone, 
and granite. County town, Inverary; 
others, Campbelton, Oban, and Dunoon. 
Pop. 1901, 73,642. 

Ayo’vlp Campbells of, a historic 
XiA &j AC > Scottish family, raised to the 
peerage in the person of Sir Duncan 
Campbell of Lochow, in 1445. The more 
eminent members are: (1) Archibald, 
2d earl, killed at the battle of Flodden, 
1513.— Archibald, 5th earl, attached 
himself to the party of Mary of Guise, 
and was the means of averting a collision 
between the Reformers and the French 
troops in 1559; was commissioner of 
regency after Mary’s abdication, but 



Argyle 


Arichat 


afterwards commanded her troops at the 
battle of Langside; died 1575.— Archi¬ 
bald, 8th earl and marquis, born 1598: 
a zealous partisan of the Covenanters; 
created a marquis by Charles I. It was 
by his persuasion that Charles II visited 
Scotland, and was crowned at Scone in 
1651. At the Restoration he was com¬ 
mitted to the Tower, and afterwards sent 
to Scotland, where he was tried for high 
treason, and beheaded in 1661.— Archi¬ 
bald, 9th earl, son of the preceding, 
served the king with great bravery at the 
battle of Dunbar, and was excluded 
from the general pardon by Cromwell in 
1654. On the passing of the Test Act in 
1681 he refused to take the required 
oath except with a reservation. For this 
he was tried and sentenced to death. 
He, however, escaped to Holland, from 
whence he returned with a view of aid¬ 
ing the Duke of Monmouth. His plan, 
however, failed, and he was taken and 
conveyed to Edinburgh where he was be¬ 
headed in 1685.— -Archibald, 10th earl 
and 1st duke, son of the preceding, died 
1703; took an active part in the revolu¬ 
tion of 1688-89, which placed William 
and Mary on the throne, and was re¬ 
warded by several important appoint¬ 
ments and the title of duke.— John, 2d 
duke and Duke of Greenwich, son of the 
above, born 1678, died 1743; served 
under Marlborough at the battles of 
Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, 
and assisted at the sieges of Lisle and 
Ghent. He incurred considerable odium 
in his own country for his efforts in 
promoting the union. In 1712 he had 
the military command in Scotland, and 
in 1715 he fought an indecisive battle 
with the Earl of Mar’s army at Sheriflf- 
muir, near Dunblane, and forced the 
Pretender to quit the kingdom. He was 
long a supporter of Walpole, but his 
political career was full of intrigue. He 
is the Duke of Argyle in Scott’s Heart 
of Midlothian. —George Douglas Camp¬ 
bell, 8th duke, Baron Sundridge and 
Hamilton, was born in 1823. He early 
took a part in politics, especially in dis¬ 
cussions regarding the Presbyterian 
Church of Scotland. In 1852 he became 
lord privy seal under Lord Aberdeen, 
and again under Lord Palmerston in 
1859; postmaster-general in 1860; secre¬ 
tary for India from 1868 to 1874; again 
lord privy seal in 1880, but retired, being 
unable to agree with his colleagues on 
their Irish policy. He was author of 
The Reign of Law , etc. Died 1900. 
His eldest son, the Marquis of Lorne 
(now 9th duke), married the Princess 
Louise, fourth daughter of Queen Vic¬ 


toria, in 1871. He was governor-general 
of Canada 1878-83. 

Arg’vro-Castro (ar'gi-r6-Kas-trd), a 
mgyiu v^dbiiu town of Turkey> in 

Albania, 40 miles northwest of Janina ; 
built on three ridges intersected by deep 
ravines, across which are several bridges. 
Pop. about 20,000. 

Argwromilos (ar-ji-rop'u-los), Jo- 
" A 5J 1U P UAUJ> iiannes, one of the 
principal revivers of Greek learning in 
the fifteenth century. Born in Constan¬ 
tinople 1415; died at Rome in 1486. 

Aria (ar'i-a), in music. See Air. 

A ri ad tip (a-ri-ad'ne), in Greek 
mythology, a daughter of 
Minos, King of Crete. She gave Theseus 
a clue of thread to conduct him out of 
the labyrinth after his defeat of the 
Minotaur. Theseus abandoned her on 
the Isle of Naxos, where she was found 
by Bacchus, who married her. 

Avian a (ar-i-a'na), the ancient name 
of a large district in Asia, 
forming a portion of the Persian Em¬ 
pire ; bounded on the north by the 
provinces of Bactriana, Margiana, and 
Hyrcania; east by the Indus; south by 
the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf; 
west by Media. 

Aviann (a-re-a'no), a town in South 
Italy, province of Avellino, 
44 miles n. w. of Naples, the seat of a 
bishop, with a handsome cathedral. Pop. 
8,360. 

Arians ( ar, i‘ anz )» the adherents of 
the Alexandrian priest Arius, 
who, about a.d. 318, promulgated the 
doctrine that Christ was a created being 
inferior to God the Father in nature and 
dignity, though the first and noblest of 
all created beings; and also that the Holy 
Spirit is not God, but created by the 
power of the Son. These doctrines were 
condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 
325. Arius died in 336, and after his 
death his party gained considerable ac¬ 
cessions, including several emperors, and 
for a time held a strong position. Since 
the middle of the seventh century, how¬ 
ever, the Arians have nowhere constituted 
a distinct sect, although similar opinions 
have been advanced by various theolo¬ 
gians in modern times. 

Arica (a-re'k&), a seaport of Chile, 30 
miles s. of Tacna; previous to 
1882 it belonged to Peru. It has suffered 
frequently from earthquakes, being in 
1868 almost entirely destroyed, part of it 
being also submerged by an earthquake 
wave. Pop. about 3,000. 

Aripliflt (ar-i-shat'), a seaport town 
and fishing station of Nova 



Arid Region 


Ariosto 


Scotia, on a small bay, s. coast of Ma¬ 
dame Island. Pop. about 2,000. 

Av'irl Ppmn-n the name applied to 
A1 1U a broad region of the 

United States in the vicinity of the 
Rocky Mountains, great part of it being 
a valueless desert from its paucity of 
rainfall, though a minor portion of it 
has been made cultivable by irrigation. 
This region includes the States of Mon¬ 
tana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New 
Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona, with parts 
of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, 
Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, California, 
Oregon and Washington, its total area 
being 1,340,000 sq. miles. It extends also 
into Northern Mexico. By aid of irriga¬ 
tion some small sections of it have been 
made very fertile, and the government is 
engaged in an extensive scheme of im¬ 
pounding the waters of mountain streams 
so as to render them available for this 
purpose. But a large section of the area 
must remain permanently desert. 

A ri ecrp (a-re-azh), a mountainous de- 
xxiicgc partment of France, on the 
northern slopes of the Pyrenees, com¬ 
prising the ancient countship of Foix and 
parts of Languedoc and Gascony. The 
principal rivers are the Ari6ge, Arize, and 
Salat, tributaries of the Garonne. Sheep 
and cattle are reared; the arable land is 
inconsiderable in extent. Capital, Foix. 
Area, 1,890 square miles; pop. 205,084. 
Ariel (A'ri-el), the name of several 
personages mentioned in the 
Old Testament; in the demonology of the 
later Jews a spirit of the waters. In 
Shakespere’s Tempest, Ariel was the 
‘ tricksy spirit ’ whom Prospero had in 
his service. 

Arip<; (a'-ri-ez; Latin), the Ram, a 
c northern constellation of 156 
stars, of which fifty are visible. It is 
the first of the twelve signs in the zodiac, 
which the sun enters at the vernal equi¬ 
nox, about the 21st of March. Owing to 
the precession of the equinoxes the sign 
Aries no longer corresponds with the con¬ 
stellation Aries, which it did 2,000 years 
ago. 

Aril, Arillus t >” 

nutmeg, an extra covering of the seed, 
outside of the true seed-coats, proceeding 
from the placenta, partially investing the 
seed, and falling off spontaneously. It 
is either succulent or cartilaginous and 
colored, elastic, rough, or knotted. In the 
nutmeg it is known as mace. 

Arimaspians (^Wpi-ans), in 

r ancient Greek tradi¬ 

tions a people who lived in the extreme 
northeast of the ancient world. They 
were said to be one-eyed and to carry on 


a perpetual war with the gold-guarding 
griffins, whose gold they endeavored to 
steal. 

Arimflfhspa (ar-i-ma-the'a), a town 
lilUlldlllcZd of Palestine> identified 

with the modern Ramleh, 22 m. w. N. w. 
of Jerusalem. 

Arion (&r-I'on), an ancient Greek 
poet and musician, born at 
Methymna, in Lesbos; flourished about 
B.c. 625. He lived at the court of Peri- 
ander of Corinth, and afterwards visited 
Sicily and Italy. Returning from Taren- 
tum to Corinth with rich treasures, the 
avaricious sailors resolved to murder him. 
Apollo, however^having informed him in 
a dream of the Impending danger, Arion 
in vain endeavored to soften the hearts 
of the crew by the power of his music. 
He then threw himself into the sea, when 
one of a shoal of dolphins, which had 
been attracted by his music, received him 
on his back and bore him to land. The 
sailors, having returned to Corinth, were 
confronted by Arion, and convicted of 
their crime. The lyre of Arion, and the 
dolphin which rescued him, became con¬ 
stellations in the heavens. A fragment of 
a hymn to Poseidon, ascribed to Arion, 
is extant. 

Ariosto (ar-i-os'to), Ludovi'co, one 
of the most celebrated poets 
of Italy, was born at Reggio, in Lom¬ 
bardy, September 8, 1474, of a noble 
family; died June 6, 1533. His lyric 
poems in the Italian and Latin languages, 
distinguished for ease and elegance of 



Ludovico Ariosto. 


style, introduced him to the notice of the 
Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of Duke 
Ercole I of Ferrara. In 1503 Ippolito 
employed him in his service, used his 
counsel in the most important affairs, and 
took him with him on a journey to Hun¬ 
gary. In this service he began and 



Aristaeus 


Aristolochia 


finished, in ten or eleven years, his im¬ 
mortal poem, the Orlando Furioso, which 
was published in 1515, and immediately 
became highly popular. He afterwards 
entered the service of Alfonso I, Duke of 
Ferrara, the cardinal’s brother, a lover 
of the arts, who put much confidence in 
him. After quelling disturbances that 
had broken out in the wild and moun¬ 
tainous Garfagnana, he returned to Fer¬ 
rara, where he employed himself in the 
composition of his comedies, and in put¬ 
ting the last touches to his Orlando. The 
Orlayido Furioso is a continuation of the 
Orlando Jnnamorata of Bojardo, details 
the chivalrous adventures of the paladins 
of the age of Charlemagne, and extends 
to forty-six cantos. The best English 
translation is that of Rose. 

AriQ+cpnc (ar-is-te'us), in Greek 
xmaucua mythology> son of Apollo 

and Cyrene, the introducer of bee-keeping. 

Aristarchus (a-ris-tar'bus), an an- 
cient Greek gramma¬ 
rian, born at Samothrace b.c. 160; died 
at Cyprus b.c. 88. He criticised Homer’s 
poems with the greatest acuteness and 
ability, endeavoring to restore the text 
to its genuine state, and to clear it of all 
interpolations and corruptions; hence the 
phrase, Aristarchian criticism. His edi¬ 
tion of Homer furnished the basis of all 
subsequent ones. 

Avictornlmc an ancient Greek as- 

iiristarcnus, tronomer belonging to 

Samos, flourished between 280 and 264 
B.C., and first asserted the revolution of 
the earth about the sun ; also regarded as 
the inventor of the sun-dial. 

Ari<jfpjK (a-ris'te-as), a personage of 
xinatcaa ancient Greek i e gend, repre¬ 
sented to have lived over many centuries, 
disappearing and reappearing by turns. 

AricfirlAt: (a-ris-tl'dez), a statesman 
Xlllbliucs of andent Gr eece, for his 

strict integrity surnamed the Just. He 
was one of the ten generals of the 
Athenians when they fought with the 
Persians at Marathon, b.c. 490. Next 
year he was eponymous archon, and in 
this office enjoyed such popularity that he 
excited the jealousy of Themistocles, who 
succeeded in procuring his banishment 
by the ostracism (about 483). Three 
years after, when Xerxes invaded Greece 
with a large army, the Athenians hast¬ 
ened to recall him, and Themistocles now 
admitted him to his confidence and coun¬ 
cils. In the battle of Platsea (479) he 
commanded the Athenians, and had a 
great share in gaining the victory. To 
defray the expenses of the Persian war 
he persuaded the Greeks to impose a tax, 
which should be paid into the hands of 
an officer appointed by the states collec- 
16—1 


tively, and deposited at Delos. The con¬ 
fidence which was felt in his integrity ap¬ 
peared in their entrusting him with the 
office of apportioning the contribution. 
He died at an advanced age about b.c. 
468, so poor that he was buried at the 
public expense. 

Aristippus (a-ris-tip'pus), a disciple 
rr of Socrates, and founder 
of a philosophical school among the 
Greeks, which was called the Cyrenaic, 
from his native city Cyrene, in Africa; 
flourished 380 b.c. His moral philosophy 
differed widely from that of Socrates, 
and was a science of refined voluptuous¬ 
ness. His fundamental principles were— 
that all human sensations may be reduced 
to two, pleasure and pain. Pleasure is a 
gentle and pain a violent emotion. All 
living beings seek the former and avoid 
the latter. Happiness is nothing but a 
continued pleasure, composed of separate 
gratifications; and as it is the object of 
all human exertions we should abstain 
from no kind of pleasure. Still we should 
always be governed by taste and reason 
in our enjoyments. His doctrines were 
taught only by his daughter, Arete, and 
by his grandson, Aristippus the younger, 
by whom they were systematized. Other 
Cyrenaics compounded them into a par¬ 
ticular doctrine of oleasure, and are hence 
called Hedonici. The time of his death 
is unknown. His writings are lost. 

Aristocracy G k %£ 

rule), a form of government by which 
the wealthy and noble, or any small 
privileged class, rules over the rest of the 
citizens; now mainly applied to the 
nobility or chief persons in a state. 

Aristogeiton t 

rendered famous by a conspiracy (514 
B.c.) formed in conjunction with his 
friend Harmodius against the tyrants 
Hippias and Hipparchus, the sons of 
Pisistratus. Both Aristogeiton and Har¬ 
modius lost their lives through their at¬ 
tempts to free the country, and were 
reckoned martyrs of liberty. 

Aristolochia a genu f s ° f 

plants, the type of the 
order Aristolochiacese, which consists of 
dicotyledonous monochlamydeous plants, 
with an inferior 3 to 6-celled fruit, prin¬ 
cipally inhabiting the hotter parts of the 
world, and in many cases used medicinal¬ 
ly on account of their tonic and stimulat¬ 
ing. properties. The genus has emmena- 
gogic qualities, especially the European 
species A. rotunda , A. longo, and A. Ole- 
matitis. A. bracteata is used in India as 
an anthelmintic; A. odoratissima. a 
West Indian species, is a valuable bitter 



Aristophanes 


Aristotle 


and alexipharmic. A. serpentaria is the 
Virginian snake-root popularly regarded 
as a remedy for snake bites. 

Aristophanes <-‘or«-n§*), <*e « reat - 

est comic poet of an¬ 
cient Greece, born at Athens probably 
about the year 444 b.c. ; died not later 
than b.c. 380. Little is known of his 
life. He appeared as a poet in b.c. 427, 
and having indulged in some sarcasms on 
the powerful demagogue, Cleon, was in¬ 
effectually accused by the latter of having 
unlawfully assumed the title of an Athe¬ 
nian citizen. He afterwards revenged 
himself on Cleon in his comedy of the 
Knights, in which he himself acted the 
part of Cleon, because no actor had the 
courage to do it. Of fifty-four comedies 
which he composed, eleven only remain; 
believed to be the flower of the ancient 
comedy, and distinguished by wit, humor, 
and poetry, as also by grossness. In 
them there is constant reference to the 
manners, actions, and public characters 
of the day, the freedom of the old Greek 
comedy allowing an unbounded degree of 
personal and political satire. The names 
of his extant plays are Acharnians, 
Knights, Clouds, Wasps, Peace, Birds, 
Lysistrata, Thcsmophoriazusce, Frogs, 
Ecclesiasuzce , and Plutus. 

Ar'w+ntlf* (ar'is-totl; Gr. Aristot'eles) 
a distinguished philosopher 
and naturalist of ancient Greece, the 
founder of the Peripatetic school of 
philosophy, was born in 384 b.c. at 
Staglra, in Macedonia, died at Chalcis, 
b.c. 322. His father, Nicomachus, was 
physician to Amyntas II, king of Mace¬ 
donia, and claimed to be descended from 
iEsculapius. Aristotle had lost his pa¬ 
rents before he came, at about the age 
of seventeen, to Athens to study in the 
school of Plato. With that philosopher 
he remained for twenty years, became pre¬ 
eminent among his pupils, and was known 
as the ‘ intellect of the school.’ Upon 
the death of Plato, 348 b.c., he took up 
his residence at Atarneus, in Mysia, on 
the invitation of his former pupil, Her- 
meias, the ruler of that city, on whose 
assassination by the Persians, 343 B.c., 
he fled to Mitylene with his wife, Pythia, 
the niece of Hermeias. During his 
residence at Mitylene he received an in¬ 
vitation from Philip of Macedon to 
superintend the education of his son, 
Alexander, then in his fourteenth year. 
This relationship between the great phi¬ 
losopher and the future conqueror con¬ 
tinued for five or six years, during which 
the prince was instructed in grammar, 
rhetoric, poetry, logic, ethics, and politics, 
and in those branches of physics which 
bad even then made some considerable 


progress. On Alexander succeeding to the 
throne Aristotle continued to live with 
him as his friend and councilor till he set 
out on his Asiatic campaign (334 b.c.). 
He returned to Athens and established 
his school in the Lyceum, a gymnasium 
attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceius, 
which was assigned to him by the state. 
He delivered his lectures in the wooded 
walks of the Lyceum while walking up 
and down with his pupils. From the ac¬ 
tion itself, or more probably from the 
name of the walks (peripatoi) , his school 
was called Peripatetic. Pupils gathered 
to him from all parts of Greece, and his 
school became by far the most popular 
in Athens. The statement that he had 
two circles of pupils, the exoteric and the 
esoteric, has given rise to much contro¬ 
versy. By some it has been held that 
Aristotle published during his lifetime 
popular discourses with a view to make 
way for his doctrines in Athenian so¬ 
ciety, then impregnated with Platonic 
theories, and that these are called exoteric 
in contradistinction to those in which are 
embodied his matured opinions. It was 
during the time of his teaching at Athens 
that Aristotle is believed to have com¬ 
posed the great bulk of his works. On 
the death of Alexander a revolution oc¬ 
curred in Athens hostile to the Mace¬ 
donian interests with which Aristotle 
was identified. He therefore retired to 
Chalcis, where he soon after died. Ac¬ 
cording to Strabo, he bequeathed all his 
works to Theophrastus, who, with other 
disciples of Aristotle, amended and con¬ 
tinued them. They afterwards passed 
through various hands, till, about 50 B.C., 
Andronicus of Rhodes put the various 
fragments together and classified them 
according to a systematic arrangement. 
Many of the books bearing his name are 
spurious, others are of doubtful genuine¬ 
ness. The whole are generally divided 
into logical, theoretical, and practical. 
The logical works are comprehended 
under the title Organon (instrument). 
The theoretical are divided into physics, 
mathematics, and metaphysics. The 
physical works (including those on nat¬ 
ural history) are on th e-General Prin¬ 
ciples of Physical Science, The Heavens, 
Generation and Destruction, Meteorology, 
Natural History of Animals, On the 
Parts of Animals, On the Generation 
of Animals, On the Locomotion of 
Animals, On the Soul, On Memory, 
Sleep and Waking , Dreams, Divination. 
In mathematics there are two treatises, 
On Indivisible Lines and Mechanical Prob¬ 
lems. The Metaphysics consist of four¬ 
teen books; the title ( Ta meta ta Phys- 
ika, ‘ the things following the Physics ’) is 



Aristoxenus 


Arithmetic 


the invention of an editor. The practi¬ 
cal works embrace ethics, politics, econom¬ 
ics, and treatises on art, and comprise 
the Nicomachwan Ethics (so called be¬ 
cause dedicated to his son, Nicomachus), 
the Politics, (Economics, Poetry, afid 
Rhetoric. Among the lost works are 
the dialogues and others to which the 
term exoteric is applied, and which were 
published during Aristotle’s lifetime. His 
style is devoid of grace and elegance. His 
works were first printed in a Latin trans¬ 
lation, with the commentaries of Averroes, 
at Venice in 1489; the first Greek edition 
was that of Aldus Manutius (five vols., 
1495-98). For an account of the philoso¬ 
phy of Aristotle see Peripatetics. 
AvicfftYPTiiK (ar-is-toks'e-nus), an 

Arisioxenub ancient Greek musi . 

cian and philosopher of Tarentum, born 
about b.c. 324. He studied music under 
his father Mnesias, and philosophy under 
Aristotle, whose successor he aspired to 
be. He endeavored to apply his musical 
knowledge to philosophy, and especially to 
the science of mind, but it only appears 
to have furnished him with far-fetched 
analogies and led him into a kind of 
materialism. There is a work by him 
on the Elements of Harmony. 

A vifTimptiP (a-rith'met-ik; Greek 

AntnmeilC arithmos, number) is 

primarily the science of numbers. As 
opposed to algebra it is the practical part 
of the science. Although the processes 
of arithmetical operations are often highly 
complicated, they all resolve themselves 
into the repetition of four primary opera¬ 
tions, addition, subtraction, multiplica¬ 
tion, and division. Of these, the two 
latter are only complex forms of the two 
former, and subtraction again, is merely 
a reversal of the process of addition. Lit¬ 
tle or nothing is known as to the origin 
and invention of arithmetic. Some elemen¬ 
tary conception of it is in all probability 
coeval with the first dawn of human in¬ 
telligence. In consequence of their rude 
methods of numeration, the science made 
but small advance among the ancient 
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and it 
was not until the introduction of the 
decimal scale of notation and the Arabic, 
or rather Indian, numerals into Europe 
that any great progress can be traced. In 
this scale of notation every number is ex¬ 
pressed by means of the ten digits, 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, by giving each 
digit a local as well as its proper or 
natural value. The value of every digit 
increases in a tenfold proportion from the 
right towards the left; the distance of any 
figure from the right indicating the power 
of 10, and the digit itself the number of 
those powers intended to be expressed: 


thus 3464—3000-f-400-f-60-f-4=3 X10 3 +4 
Xl0 2 +6Xl0+4. The earliest arithmet¬ 
ical signs appear to have been hieroglyphi- 
cal, but the Egyptian hieroglyphics were 
too diffuse to be of any arithmetical value. 
The units were successive strokes to the 
number required, the ten an open circle, 
the hundred a curled palm-leaf, the thou¬ 
sand a lotus flower, ten thousand a bent 
finger. The letters of the alphabet 
afforded a convenient mode of represent¬ 
ing figures, and were used accordingly 
by the Chaldeans, Hebrews, and Greeks. 
The first nine letters of the Hebrew 
alphabet represented the units, the second 
nine tens, the remaining four together 
with five repeated with additional marks, 
hundreds; the same succession of letters 
with added points was repeated for thou¬ 
sands, tens of thousands, and hundreds 
of thousands. The Greeks followed the 
same system up to tens of thousands. 
They wrote the different classes of num¬ 
bers in succession as we do, and they 
transferred operations performed on units 
to numbers in higher places; but the use 
of different signs for the different ranks 
clearly shows a want of full perception of 
the value of place as such. They adopted 
the letter M as a sign for 10,000 and by 
combining this mark with their other 
numerals they could note numbers as high 
as 100,000,000. The Roman numerals 
which are still used in marking dates or 
numbering chapters were almost useless 
for purposes of computation. From one 
to four were represented by vertical 
strokes. I, II, III, IIII, five by V, ten 
by X, fifty by L, one hundred by [, after¬ 
wards C, five hundred by D, a thousand 
by M. These signs were derived from 
each other according to particular rules, 
thus V was the half of X, A being also 
used ; L was likewise the half of [. M 
was artistically written M and cTc, and 
Io, afterwards D, became five hundred, 
ocl represented 5000, ccloo 10,000 Iooo 
50,000. ccclooo 100,000. They were 
also compounded by addition and sub¬ 
traction. thus IV stood for four, VI for 
six, XXX for thirty, XL for forty. 
LX for sixty. Arithmetic is divided into 
abstract and practical ; the former com¬ 
prehends notation, numeration, addition, 
subtraction, multiplication, division, meas¬ 
ures and multiples, fractions, powers 
and roots: the latter treats of the com¬ 
binations and practical applications of 
these and the so-called rules, such as re¬ 
duction, compound addition, subtraction, 
multiplication, and division; proportion, 
interest, profit and loss, etc. Another 
division is integral and fractional arith¬ 
metic, the former treating of integers, or 
whole numbers, and the latter of frac- 



Arithmetical 


Arkansas 


tions. Decimal fractions were invented 
in the sixteenth century, and logarithms, 
embodying the last great advance in the 
science, in the seventeenth century. 

Arithmptirfll (a-rith-met'i-kal), per- 
All mine 11 tell taining t0 arithmetic 

or its operations.— Arithmetical mean, the 
middle term of three quantities in arith¬ 
metical progression, or half the sum of 
any two proposed numbers; thus 11 is the 
arithmetical mean to 8 and 14.— 
Arithmetical progression, a series of num¬ 
bers increasing or decreasing by a common 
difference, as 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.— Arith¬ 
metical signs, certain symbols used in 
arithmetic, and indicating processes or 
facts. The common signs used in arith¬ 
metic are the following: -f- signifying 

that the numbers between which it is 
placed are to be added ; — that the second 
is to be subtracted from the first; X that 
the one is to be multiplied by the other; 
-r- that the former is to be divided by the 
latter; = signifies that the one number 
is equal to the other: : : : : are the 
signs placed between the members of a 
proportional series, as 4 : 6 :: 8 : 12. 
A small figure placed on the right hand 
of another at the top signifies the corre¬ 
sponding power of the number beside 
which it is placed, as 5 2 , 4 3 , meaning the 
square of 5 and the cube of 4. V placed 
before or over a number signifies the 
square root of that number; with a figure 
it signifies the root of a higher power, as 
which means cube root. A period 
placed to the left of a series of figures in¬ 
dicates that they are decimal fractions. 
A'rin^i the originator of the Arian 
9 heresy. See Arians. 

A ri 70 Ti a (ar-i-zo'na), one of the United 
States of America, bounded 
south by Mexico, west by California and 
Nevada (the river Colorado forming the 
greater part of the boundary), north by 
Utah, and east by New Mexico; area, 
113,956 square miles. The surface is 
generally mountainous, but many fertile 
and well-watered valleys lie between the 
ridges. Part of the surface consists of 
deserts often entirely destitute of vege¬ 
tation. The territory belongs to the basin 
of the Colorado, which passes through 
a portion of it, besides forming the 
boundary; while the Gila and Little 
Colorado, tributaries of the Colorado, 
traverse it from east to west. The can¬ 
yons of the Colorado form a wonderful 
feature, the river flowing for hundreds 
of miles in a deep rocky channel with 
walls rising perpendicularly to the height 
of 1,500 to 6,000 feet. In some parts tim¬ 
ber is plentiful. The rainfall is small, and 
irrigation has been employed for agricul¬ 
tural purposes, most of the streams 


being used for this purpose, in some 
cases by the aid of great dams. Regions 
apparently worthless deserts become 
highly productive when irrigated. Large 
tracts of elevated land have been found 
excellently adapted as pastures for sbeep 
and cattle. Gold, silver, and other min¬ 
erals occur abundantly and mining is 
largely carried on, much silver and gold 
being now obtained. The capital is 
Phoenix. Arizona was organized as a 
territory in Feb., 1863, and within re¬ 
cent years efforts were made to lift it 
into statehood in connection with New 
Mexico, but these were negatived by the 
opposition of its people. In 1910 Con¬ 
gress passed a bill for its admission as 
a separate State; in 1911 its constitu¬ 
tion was accepted, with a reservation to 
be voted on, and in February, 1912, it 
was admitted as a State. Pop. 204,354, 
exclusive of Apaches and other Indians, 
who have frequently given much trouble. 

Ariish. (ar-jesh') Dagh, the loftiest 
A peak of the peninsula of Asia 
Minor, at the western extremity of the 
Anti-Taurus Range, 13,150 feet; an ex¬ 
hausted volcano; on the N. and N. E. 
slopes are extensive glaciers. 

A-pL- the name applied in our translation 
9 of the Bible to the boat or floating 
edifice in which Noah resided during the 
flood or deluge; to the floating vessel of 
bulrushes in which the infant Moses was 
laid ; and to the chest in which the tables 
of the law were preserved—the ark of the 
covenant. This was made of shittim- 
wood, overlaid within and without with 
gold, about 3% feet long by 2% feet high 
and broad, and over it were placed the 
golden covering or mercy-seat and the 
two cherubim. It was placed in the 
sanctuary of the temple of Solomon; be¬ 
fore his time it was kept in the taber¬ 
nacle, and was moved about as circum¬ 
stances dictated. At the captivity it ap¬ 
pears to have been either lost or 
destroyed. 

Arkansas (ar ' ka "- s «’ F T r . en ^ h 

one of the United States 
of America, bounded north by Missouri; 
east by the Mississippi, which separates 
it from the States of Mississippi and 
Tennessee; south by Louisiana and 
Texas; and west by the States of Okla¬ 
homa and Texas; area, 53.335 square 
miles. The surface in the east is low, flat, 
and swampy, densely wooded, and subject 
to frequent inundations from the numer¬ 
ous streams which water it. Towards the 
center it becomes more diversified, pre¬ 
senting many undulating slopes and hills 
of moderate elevation. In the west it 
rises still higher, being traversed by a 
range of hills called the Ozark, which 









Carmel 


Leeds 


'Glendale 


Wheeler 

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p Ranah 


Fredonia 


Vermillion■ 
‘ Cliffs ' 


Diamond 

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Overton 




Grand r 

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Cliffs^ 


7 v"'® 

RESERVATION 


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Grand Canoi 


Coconino 


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Keanss 


;hualpain 


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jzier Aubre j\ 
/ Seligman 1 
.Cross M.t* 


Chambers 


Meath 

/ %J y ^Hock Butte\jl^«//%i#ia| 

, { Cedar OUilet’, - N s' » c 

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late Creek 
Piedmont 

SongresscAbtan^oiiiCictaire orrI 


Greenlaw 


l’into 


C-7 A Jam aua 


Snowflake 
Sfo • Taylor / 

// Pinedalcl^ 


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Chocolate 

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tes. Casfik L 


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jV^esa- ^Silvefjku 
a Y^uceri^Cr^ 


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Y. V 

_Agna Caliente 


giu^abritejs| 
.'S.... Geronimi 


•lcopa a* 


Dome 

Mts. 

\v\a 


jBfycejuttp,.; 

aCentrftlyle 


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I Brownell 


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Sierra 


wk yPearce'—-— l ! *r> 
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Scale of Miles 


Canauta 


Pronteras 


[Ccrro Blanco 


Xacozarl 


113° Longitude C West 112° from D Greenwich' 111' 



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Arkansas 


Arles 


°ttain a height of 2,000 feet, some peaks 
rising to 3,000. In various parts the 
prairies are of great extent; the forests 
also are very magnificent, containing 
fine specimens, principally of oak, hick¬ 
ory, ash, cotton, linden, maple, locust, and 
nine. The principal rivers, all tributaries 
of the Mississippi, are the Arkansas, the 
Red River, the St. Francis, and the 
Washita. Near the center of the State 
are warm springs, much resorted to for 
chronic rheumatic and paralytic affec¬ 
tions. The climate, though on the whole 
mild, is subject to great extremes of heat 
and cold, and in the lower districts is 
unhealthy to new settlers. The staple 
products are cotton and maize; fruit is 
tolerably abundant. Many districts are 
admirably adapted for grazing, and great 
numbers of excellent cattle are reared. 
The State is rich in minerals, especially 
coal, which occurs in extensive deposits, 
Galena is abundant and ores of zinc, iron, 
copper and manganese exist. The valu¬ 
able mineral bauxite occurs, largely and 
noviculite, or hone-stone, is abundant. 
Arkansas was colonized as early as 1685 
by the French. As a part of Louisiana it 
was purchased by the United States in 
1803. It was erected into a separate 
territory in 1819, and admitted into the 
Union in 1836. It was one of the seced¬ 
ing States. The capital is Little Rock, 
a thriving city on the Arkansas River. 
Pop. 1,574,449. . . 

AvVqtiqqq an affluent of the Missis- 
XII is.cuiaaa, gippi Ri ver> which gives its 

name to the above State. It rises in the 
Rocky Mountains, about lat. 39° N., Ion. 
107° w., flows in a general southeasterly 
direction through Colorado, Kansas, Okla¬ 
homa, and Arkansas, and falls into the 
Mississippi. Length, 2,170 miles. 

Arkansas City, £ ns c a °7$ 

center of a rich agricultural district with 
a trade in lumber. A national Indian 
school is located here. Pop. 7,508. 
AvVlnw (ark'lo), a town in Ireland, 
X 1 IK 1 UW County Wicklow, on the right 

bank of the Avoca, which falls into the 
sea about 500 yards below the town ; the 
scene of a severe fight during the rebel¬ 
lion of 1798. Fishing is the chief indus¬ 
try. Pop. about 4,200. 

Ark-wriVllt (arkrit), Sir Rich- 
iirKWrigllt ABJ) famous for his 

inventions in cotton-spinning, was born 
at Preston, in Lancashire, in 1732; died 
1792. The youngest of thirteen children, 
he was bred to the trade of a barber. 
When about thirty-five years of age he 
gave himself up exclusively to the sub¬ 
ject of inventions for spinning cotton. 
The thread spun by Hargreaves’ jenny 


could not be used except as weft, being 
destitute of the firmness or hardness re¬ 
quired in the longitudinal threads or 
warp. But Arkwright supplied this defi¬ 
ciency by the invention of the spinning- 
frame, which spins a vast number of 
threads of any degree of fineness and 
hardness, leaving the operator merely to 
feed the machine with cotton and to join 
the threads when they happen to break. 
His invention introduced the system of 
spinning by rollers, the carding, or roving 
as it is technically termed (that is, the 
soft, loose strip of cotton), passing 
through one pair of rollers, and being re¬ 
ceived by a second pair, which are made 
to revolve with (as the case may be) 
three, four, or five times the velocity of 
the first pair. By this contrivance the 
roving is drawn out into a thread of the 
desired degree of tenuity and hardness. 
His inventions being brought into a some¬ 
what advanced state, Arkwright removed 
to Nottingham in 1768 in order to avoid 
the attacks of the same lawless rabble 
that had driven Hargreaves out of Lan¬ 
cashire. Here his operations were at 
first greatly fettered by a want of capital; 
but two gentlemen of means having en¬ 
tered into partnership with him, the 
necessary funds were obtained, and Ark¬ 
wright erected his first mill, which was 
driven by horses, at Nottingham, and 
took out a patent for spinning by rollers 
in 1769. As the mode of working the 
machinery by horse-power was found too 
expensive, he built a second factory on a 
much larger scale at Cromford, in Derby¬ 
shire, in 1771, the machinery of which 
was turned by a water-wheel. Having 
made several additional discoveries and 
improvements in the processes of carding, 
roving, and spinning, he took out a fresh 
patent for the whole in 1775, and thus 
completed a series of the most ingenious 
and complicated machinery. Notwith¬ 
standing a series of lawsuits in defense 
of his patent rights, and the destruction 
of his property by mobs, he amassed a 
large fortune. He was knighted by 
George III in 1786. 

AvlhprP’ (arl'ber^), a branch of the 
xliiUCi ° Rhaetian Alps, in the west of 
Tirol, between it and Vorarlberg, pierced 
by the fourth longest railway tunnel in 
the world. It is 6% miles long, was 
finished in November, 1883, and connects 
the valley of the Inn with that of the 
Rhine, and the Austrian railway system 
with the Swiss railways. 

ArleS anc * ^ relate), a town of 

‘ n “ L Southern France, dep. Bouches 

du Rhone, 17 miles s. of Nismes. It 
was an important town at the time of 
Caesar’s invasion, and under the later 



Arlington 


Armada 


emperors it became one of the most 
flourishing towns on the further side of 
the Alps. It still possesses numerous 
ancient remains, of which the most con¬ 
spicuous are those of a Roman amphi¬ 
theater, which accommodated 24,000 
spectators. It has a considerable trade, 
manufactures of silk, etc., and furnishes a 
market for the surrounding country. 
Pop. (1900) 16,191. 

Arlington (ar'ling-tun), Henry Ben- 
° net, Earl of, member of 
the Cabal ministry, and one of the 
scheming creatures of Charles II, born 
1018; died 1685. He is supposed to have 
lived and died a Roman Catholic. 


Arlington, 


a village of Middlesex Co., 
Massachusetts, 6 miles 


N. w. of Boston, seat of Mount Hope 
Hospital for the Insane. It has a large 
log-wood and spice grinding mill, and 
makes piano cases, ice tools, etc. Pop. 
11,187. 

Arm ^e u PP er li m t) in man, connected 
f with the thorax or chest by means 
of the scapula or shoulder-blade, and the 
clavicle or collar-bone. It consists of 
three bones, the arm-bone ( humerus) 
and the two bones of the forearm (radius 
and ulna), and it is connected with the 
bones of the hand by the carpus or wrist. 
The head or upper end of the arm-bone 



A, Arm of Man. B, Foreleg of Dog. C, Wing 
of Bird, h Humerus, or bone of upper arm ; r 
and u Radius and Ulna, or bones of the fore¬ 
arm ; c Carpus, or bones of the wrist; m Meta¬ 
carpus, or bones of the root of the hand; p 
Phalanges, or bones of the fingers. 


fits into the hollow called the glenoid 
cavity of the scapula, so as to form a 
joint of the ball-and-socket kind, allowing 
great freedom of movement to the limb. 
The lower end of the humerus is broad¬ 
ened out by a projection on both the outer 
and inner sides (the outer and inner 
condyles ), and has a pulley-like surface 
for articulating with the forearm to 


form the elbow-joint. This joint some¬ 
what resembles a hinge, allowing of move¬ 
ment only in one direction. The ulna is 
the inner of the two bones of the fore¬ 
arm. It is largest at the upper end, 
where it has two processes, the coronoid 
and the olecranon, with a deep groove be¬ 
tween to receive the humerus. The radius 
—the outer of the two bones—is small 
at the upper and expanded at the lower 
end, where it forms part of the wrist- 
joint. The muscles of the upper arm are 
either flexors or extensors, the former 
serving to bend the arm, the latter, to 
straighten it by means of the elbow-joint. 
The main flexor is the biceps, the large 
muscle which may be seen standing out in 
front of the arm when a weight is raised. 
The chief opposing muscle of the biceps 
is the triceps. The muscles of the fore¬ 
arm are, besides flexors and extensors, 
pronators and supinators, the former 
turning the hand palm downwards, the 
latter turning it upwards. The same 
fundamental plan of structure exists in 
the limbs of all vertebrate animals. 

Arm aria (ar-ma'da), the Spanish 

iirmaaa name for any large naval 

force; usually applied to the Spanish fleet 
vaingloriously designated the Invincible 
Armada , intended to act against England 
a.d. 1588. It was under the command 
of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, and con¬ 
sisted of 130 great war vessels, larger 
and stronger than any belonging to the 
English fleet, with 30 smaller ships of 
war, and carried 19,295 marinas, 8460 
sailors, 20S8 slaves, and 2630 cannons. 
It had scarcely quitted Lisbon on May 
29, 1588, when it was scattered by a 
storm, and had to be refitted in Corunna. 
It was to cooperate with a land force 
collected in Flanders under the Prince of 
Parma, and to unite with this it pro¬ 
ceeded through the English Channel 
towards Calais. In its progress it was 
attacked by the English fleet under Lord 
Howard, who, with his lieutenants, 
Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, endeav¬ 
ored by dexterous seamanship and the 
discharge of well-directed volleys of shot 
to destroy or capture the vessels of the 
enemy. The great lumbering Spanish 
vessels suffered severely from their 
smaller opponents, which most of their 
shot missed. Arrived at length off Dun¬ 
kirk, the armada was becalmed, thrown 
into confusion by fire-ships, and many of 
the Spanish vessels destroyed or taken. 
The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, owing to 
the severe losses, at last resolved to aban¬ 
don the enterprise, and conceived the 
idea of reconveying his fleet to Spain by 
a voyage round the north of Great Bri¬ 
tain ; but storm after storm assailed his 



Armadillo 


Armatoles 


ships, scattering them in all directions, 
and sinking many. Some went down on 
the cliffs of Norway, others in the open 
sea, others on the Scottish coast. About 
thirty vessels reached the Atlantic Ocean, 
and of these several were driven on the 
coast of Ireland and wrecked. In all, 
seventy-two large vessels and over 10,000 
men were lost. 

Armadillo (4r-ma-dU'16; genus 

Dasypus ), an edentate 
mammal peculiar to South America, con¬ 
sisting of various species, belonging to a 
family intermediate between the sloths 
and ant-eaters. They are covered with a 
hard bony shell, divided into belts, com¬ 
posed of small separate plates like a coat 
of mail, flexible everywhere except on the 
forehead, shoulders, and haunches, where 
it is not movable. The belts are con¬ 
nected by a membrane, which enables the 
animal to roll itself up like a hedgehog. 



Skeleton of ah Armadillo, showing the regions 
of the vertebral column, c Cervical region ; a 
Dorsal region ; b Lumbar region ; s Sacral re¬ 
gion ; t Caudal region or tail. 

These animals burrow in the earth, where 
they lie during the daytime, seldom going 
abroad except at night. They are of dif¬ 
ferent sizes; the largest Dasypus gig as, 
being 3 feet in length without the tail, 
and the smallest only 10 inches. They 
subsist chiefly on fruits and roots, some¬ 
times on insects and flesh. They are in¬ 
offensive, and their flesh is esteemed good 
food.—There is a genus of isopodous 
Crustacea called Armadillo, consisting of 
animals allied to the wood-lice, capable 
of rolling themselves into a ball. 

Armageddon <" u £>' of Z 

Old Testament, where the chief conflicts 
took place between the Israelites and 
their enemies—the tableland of Es- 
draelon in Galilee and Samaria, in the 
center of which stood the town Megiddo, 
on the site of the modern Lejjun: used 
figuratively in the Apocalypse to signify 
the place of ‘ the battle of the great day 
of God.’ 

Armao’Ti (ar-ma'), a county of Ireland, 
Xllliictgll . Q the p rov i nce 0 f Ulster; 


surrounded by Monaghan, Tyrone, Lough 
Neagh, Down, and Lowth; area 512 sq. 
miles, of which about a half is under till¬ 
age. The northwest of the county is 
undulating and fertile. The northern 
part, bordering on Lough Neagh, consists 
principally of extensive bogs. On the 
southern border is a range of barren hills. 
The chief rivers are the Blackwater, 
which separates it from Tyrone; the 
Upper Bann, which discharges itself into 
Lough Neagh ; and the Callan, which falls 
into the Blackwater. There are several 
small lakes. The manufacture of linen is 
carried on very extensively. Armagh, 
Lurgan, and Portadown are the chief 
towns. The county sends three members 
to Parliament. Pop. 125,238.—The county 
town, Armagh, formerly a parliamentary 
borough, is situated partly on a hill, 
about half a mile from the Callan. It 
has a Protestant cathedral crowning the 
hill, a Gothic building dating from the 
eighth century, repaired and beautified 
recently; a new Roman Catholic cathe¬ 
dral in the pointed Gothic style, and 
various public buildings. It is the see 
of an archbishop of the Protestant Epis¬ 
copal Church, who is primate of all Ire- 
, land, and is a place of great antiquity. 
\ Pop. about 7500. 

I Armoo’TiflP (ar-m&-nyak), an an- 

iii-magnac cient territory of France> 

in the province of Gascony, some of the 
counts of which hold prominent places in 
the history of France. Bernard VII, son 
of John II, surnamed the Hunchback, 
succeeded his brother, John III, in 1391, 
and was called to court by Isabella of 
Bavaria, with the view of heading the Or¬ 
leans in opposition to the Burgundian 
faction, where he no sooner gained the 
ascendency than he compelled the queen 
to appoint him Constable of France. He 
showed himself a merciless tyrant, and 
became so generally execrated that the 
Duke of Burgundy, to whom Isabella 
had turned for help, found little difficulty 
in gaining admission into Paris, and even 
seizing the person of Armagnac, who was 
cast into prison in 1418, when the exas¬ 
perated populace burst in and killed him 
and his followers. John V, grandson of 
the above, who succeeded in 1450, made 
himself notorious for his crimes. He was 
assassinated in his castle of Lectoure in 
1473 by an agent of Louis XI, against 
whom he was holding out. 

Arrnatnlpc (ar-ma-to'les), the w a r- 

iirmatoies like inhabitants of the 

mountain districts of Northern Greece. 
They have dwelt there since the 15th cen¬ 
tury, at one time ravaging the lower 
country as robbers, at another protecting 
the inhabitants from other robbers in 




Armature 


Armenia 


consideration of blackmail. The Turks, 
unable to subdue them, finally made terms 
with them, and converted them into a 
sort of rural police. They hated the 
Turkish rule, nominal as it was, and 
joined the Greeks, 12,000 strong, in the 
insurrection of 1820, gaining some degree 
of glory in the war of independence. 

Armature ( i r ' r , na ; t0 ^’ a - term , a ?: 

plied to the piece of soft 
iron which is placed across the poles of 
.permanent or electro-magnets for the 
purpose of receiving and concentrating 
the attractive force. In the case of per- 
manent. magnets it is also important for 
preserving their magnetism when not in 
use, and hence it is sometimes termed the 
keeper. It produces this effect in virtue 
of the well-known law of induction, by 
which the armature, when placed near or 
across the poles of the magnet, is itself 
converted into a temporary magnet with 
reversed poles, and these, reacting upon 
the permanent magnet, keep its particles 
in a state of constant magnetic tension, 
or, in other words, in that constrained 
position which is supposed to constitute 
magnetism. A horseshoe magnet should 
therefore never be laid aside without its 
armature; and in the case of straight 
bar-magnets two should be placed parallel 
to each other, with their poles reversed, 
and a keeper or armature across them at 
both ends. The term is also applied to 
the core and coil of the electro-magnet, 
which revolves before the poles of the 
permanent magnet in the magneto-elec¬ 
tric machine. 

Armenia (ar-me'ni-a), a mountain- 

iirmenia ous country of Western 

Asia, not now politically existing, but of 
great historical interest, as the original 
seat of one of the oldest civilized peoples 
in the world. It is now shared between 
Turkey, Persia, and Russia. It has an 
area of about 137,000 square miles, and 
is intersected by the Euphrates, which 
divided it into the ancient Armenia 
Major and Armenia Minor. The country 
is an elevated plateau, inclosed on several 
sides by the ranges of Taurus and Anti- 
Taurus, and partly occupied by other 
mountains, the loftiest of which is Ararat. 
Several important rivers take their rise 
in Armenia, namely, the Kur or Cyrus, 
and its tributary the Aras or Araxes, 
flowing east to the Caspian Sea; the 
Halys or Kizil-Irmak, flowing north to 
the Black Sea; and the Tigris and Eu¬ 
phrates, which flow into the Persian Gulf. 
The chief lakes are Van and Urumiyah. 
The climate is rather severe. The soil is 
on the whole productive, though in many 
places it would be quite barren were it 
not for the great care taken to irrigate it. 


Wheat, barley, tobacco, hemp, grapes, and 
cotton are raised; and in some of the 
valleys apricots, peaches, mulberries, and 
■walnuts are grown. The inhabitants are 
chiefly of the genuine Armenian stock, a 
branch of the Aryan or Indo-European 
race; but besides them, in consequence 
of the repeated subjugation of the coun¬ 
try, various other races have obtained a 
footing. The total number of Armenians 
is estimated at 2,000,000, of whom prob¬ 
ably one-half are in Armenia. The re¬ 
mainder, like the Jews, are scattered over 
various countries, and being strongly 
addicted to commerce, play an important 
part as merchants. They retain, how¬ 
ever, in their different colonies their dis¬ 
tinct nationality. 

Little is known of the early history of 
Armenia, but it was a separate State as 
early as the eighth century b.c., when it 
became subject to Assyria, as it also did 
subsequently to the Medes and the Per¬ 
sians. It was conquered by Alexander 
the Great in 325 B.C., but regained its in¬ 
dependence about 190 B.c. Its king, 
Tigranes, son-in-law of the celebrated 
Mithridates, was defeated by the Romans 
under Lucullus and Pompey about 69-66 
B.c., but was left on the throne. Since 
then its fortunes have been various under 
the Romans, Parthians, Byzantine em¬ 
perors, . Persians, Saracens, Turks, etc. 
A considerable portion of it has been ac¬ 
quired by Russia in the present century; 
part of this in 1878. 

The Armenians received Christianity as 
early as the second century. During the 
Monophysitic^ disputes they held with 
those who rejected the two-fold nature of 
Christ, and being dissatisfied with the 
decisions of the Council of Chalcedon 
(451) they separated from the Greek 
Church in 536. The popes have at dif¬ 
ferent times attempted to gain them over 
to the Roman Catholic faith, but have 
not been able to unite them permanently 
and generally with the Roman Church. 
There are, however, small numbers here 
and there of United Armenians, who 
acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of 
the pope, agree in their doctrines with 
the Catholics, but retain their peculiar 
ceremonies and discipline. But the far 
greater part are yet Monophysites, and 
have remained faithful to their old relig¬ 
ion and worship. Their doctrine differs 
from the orthodox chiefly in their admit¬ 
ting only one nature in Christ, and be¬ 
lieving the Holy Spirit to proceed from 
the Father alone. Their sacraments are 
seven in number. They adore saints and 
their images, but do not believe in purga¬ 
tory. Their hierarchy differs little from 
that of the Greeks. The Catholicus, or 



Armentieres 


Arminius 


head of the church, has his seat at Etch- 
miadzin, a monastery near Erivan. the 
capital of Russian Armenia, on Mount 
Ararat. 

The Armenian language belongs to the 
Indo-European family of languages, and 
is most closely connected with the Iranic 
group. The Old Armenian language dif¬ 
fers from the modern, which contains a 
large intermixture of Persian and Turkish 
elements. The Armenian Bible, trans¬ 
lated from the Septuagint by Isaac or 
Sahak, the patriarch, early in the fifth 
century, is a model of the classic style. 

In 1896 efforts were made towards ameli¬ 
orating the condition of the Armenians, 
which, under the oppression of their 
Turkish rulers, both political and re¬ 
ligious, had become unendurable. Mas¬ 
sacres having occurred in many places, by 
which thousands of the Armenians were 
put to death with terrible cruelty, the 
civilized nations combined for the purpose 
of enforcing reforms in the Turkish gov¬ 
ernment but with no great success, for 
many Armenians were massacred during 
the revolution of 1909. 

Armpritiprp^ (ar-man-tyar), a town 
iirmenhieieb in France> dep . No rd, 

10 miles w. N. w. of Lille, on the Lys. 
The town has extensive manufactures of 
linen and cotton goods and an extensive 
trade. Pop. (1906) 25,408. 

Av-mfplt (arm'felt), Gustav Moritz, 
xilillicit Count of, Swedish soldier; 
born in 1757; died in 1814. Though he 
had been highly favored and loaded with 
honors by Gustavus III, he incurred the 
enmity of the Duke of Sudermania, guard¬ 
ian to the young king, Gustavus IV, 
and was deprived of all his titles and pos¬ 
sessions. He was restored to his fortune 
and honors in 1799, when Gustavus IV 
attained his majority, and held several 
high military posts. Ultimately, however, 
he entered the Russian service, was made 
count, chancellor of the University of 
Abo, president of the department for the 
affairs of Finland, member of the Rus¬ 
sian senate, and served in the campaign 
against Napoleon in 1812. 

Arm-id a (ar-me'da), a beautiful en- 
mniiua c h an t ress i n Tasso’s Jerusa¬ 
lem Delivered , who succeeds in bringing 
the hero, Rinaldo, with whom she had 
fallen violently in love, to her enchanted 
gardens. Here he completely forgets the 
high task to which he had devoted him¬ 
self, until messengers from the Christian 
host having arrived at the island, Rinaldo 
escapes with them by means of a powerful 
talisman. In the sequel Armida becomes 
a Christian. 

A-rm-illarv (ar'mi-lar-i) Sphere (L. 
Xlimilieu. y armilla , a hoop), an astro¬ 


nomical instrument consisting of an ar¬ 
rangement of rings, all circles of one 
sphere, intended to represent the prin¬ 
cipal circles of the celestial globe, the 
rings standing for the meridian of the 
station, the ecliptic, the tropics, the 
Arctic and Antarctic circles, etc., in 
their relative positions. Its main 
use is to give a representation of the 
apparent motions of the solar sys¬ 
tem. 

Arminians (Ar-min'i-ans), aI sect or 
party of Christians, so 
called from James Arminius or Harmen- 
sen, a Protestant divine of Leyden, who 
died in 1609. They were called also Re¬ 
monstrants, from their having presented 
a remonstrance to the States-general in 
1610. The Arminian doctrines are: (1) 
Conditional election and reprobation, in 
opposition to absolute predestination. 
(2) Universal redemption, or that the 
atonement was made by Christ for all 
mankind, though none but believers can 
be partakers of the benefit. (3) That 
man, in order to exercise true faith, must 
be regenerated and renewed by the opera¬ 
tion of the Holy Spirit, which is the gift 
of God ; but that this grace is not irresist¬ 
ible and may be lost, so that men may 
relapse from a state of grace and die in 
their sins. These doctrines were vehe¬ 
mently attacked by the Calvinists of 
Holland, and were condemned by the 
Synod of Dort in 1619. The Arminians 
in consequence were treated with great 
severity; many of them fled to, and spread 
in, other countries, and though there is 
no longer any particular sect to which the 
name is exclusively applied, many bodies 
are classed as Arminians, as being op¬ 
posed to the Calvinists on the question 
of predestination. 

Arm ini tic (ar-min'i-us), an ancient 
xiiiiiiniua German hero celebrated by 

his fellow-countrymen as their deliverer 
from the Roman yoke; born about 18-16 
b.c., assassinated a.d. 19. Having been 
sent as a hostage to Rome, he served in 
the Roman army, and was raised to the 
rank of eques. Returning home he found 
the Roman governor, Quintillius Varus, 
making efforts to Romanize the German 
tribes near the Rhine. Placing himself at 
the head of the discontented tribes he com¬ 
pletely annihilated the army of Varus, 
consisting of three legions, in a three 
days’ battle fought in the Teutoburg for¬ 
est. For some time he baffled the Roman 
general Germanicus, and after many 
years’ resistance to the vast power of the 
empire he drew upon himself the hatred 
of his countrymen by aiming at the regal 
authority, and was assassinated. A 
national monument to his memory was 



Arminius 


Arms and Armor 


inaugurated on the Grotenburg, near 
Detmold, in 1875. 

ArmimiiQ Jacobus (properly Jakob 
miliumua, harmensen), founder of 

the sect of Arminians or Remonstrants, 
was born in South Holland in 1560; 
died 1609. He studied at Utrecht, in the 
University of Leyden, and at Geneva, 
where his chief preceptor in theology was 
Theodore Beza (1582). On his return to 
Holland he was appointed minister of one 
of the churches in Amsterdam, and 
chosen to undertake the refutation of a 
work which strongly controverted Beza’s 
doctrine of predestination; but he hap¬ 
pened to be convinced by the work which 
he had undertaken to refute. Elected in 
1603 professor of divinity at Leyden, he 
openly declared his opinions, and was in¬ 
volved in harassing controversies, espe¬ 
cially with his fellow-professor, Gomarus. 
These contests, with the continual attacks 
on his reputation, at length impaired his 
health and brought on a complicated 
disease, of which he died. See Arminians. 

ArrniQ-H pp (ar'mis-tis), a temporary 
ill Illlb blue SUS pension of hostilities 

between two belligerent powers or two 
armies by mutual agreement, often con¬ 
cluded for only a few hours t® bury the 
slain, remove the wounded, and exchange 
prisoners, as also sometimes to allow of a 
parley between the opposing generals. A 
general armistice is usually the prelimi¬ 
nary of a peace. 

Avnmrina (ar-mor'i-ka; from two 
illlliUHCd, Celtic words si gn if y i ng 

* upon the sea’ ), a name anciently ap¬ 
plied to all Northwestern Gaul, latterly 
limited to what is now Brittany. Hence 
Armoric is one name for Breton or the 
language of the inhabitants of Brittany, 
a Celtic dialect closely allied to Welsh. 

Armor (ar'mor). See Arms. 


Ar'morer a maker °f artnor or arms, 
9 or one who keeps them in 
repair. In the army an armorer is at¬ 
tached to each troop of cavalry and to 
each company of infantry. 


Armor-plates, 


iron or steel plates 
with which the sides 


of vessels of war are covered with the 
view of rendering them shot-proof. See 
Iron-clad Vessels. 


Arms, Goat of > or Armorial Bear- 
9 ings, a collective name for the 
devices borne on shields, or banners, etc., 
as marks of dignity and distinction, and, 
in the case of family and feudal arms, 
descending from father to son. They 
were first employed by the Crusaders, and 
become hereditary in families at the close 
of the twelfth century. They took their 
rise from the knights painting their ban¬ 


ners or shields each with a figure or 
figures proper to himself, to enable him 
to be distinguished in battle when clad 
in armor. See Heraldry. 

Aims, College of. See Herald. 

Arms Stand 0F ’ set arms neces- 
9 sary for the equipment of a sin¬ 
gle soldier. 

Arms and Armor. J he former 

term is ap¬ 
plied to weapons of offense, the latter 
to the various articles of defensive cover¬ 
ing used in war and military exercises, 
especially before the introduction of gun¬ 
powder. Weapons of offense are divisi¬ 
ble into two distinct sections—firearms, 
and arms used without gunpowder or 
other explosive substance. The first 
arms of offense would probably be wooden 
clubs, then would follow wooden weapons 
made more deadly by means of stone or 

a, Bascinet. 

b, Jewelled orle round the 
bascinet. 

c, Gorget, or gorgiere of 
plate. 

D, Pauldrons. 
e, Breastplate-cuirass. 
p, Rere-braces. 
o, Coudes or elbow-plates. 
h, Gauntlets. 

I, Vambrace. 

j, Skirt of taces. 

k, Military belt or cingu¬ 
lum, richly jeweled. 

l, Tuilles or tuillets. 

M, Cuisses. 

N, Genouilleres or knee- 
pieces. 

o, Jambes. 

p, Spur-straps. 

Q, Sollerets. 

R, Misericorde or dagger, 
s, Sword, suspended by a 

transverse belt. 

Armor, from the effigy of Sir Richard Peyton, in 
Tong Church, Shropshire. 

bone, then stone axes, slings, bows and 
arrows with heads of flint or bone, and 
afterwards various weapons of bronze. 
Subsequently a variety of arms of iron 
and steel were introduced, which com¬ 
prised the sword, javelin, pike, spear or 
lance, dagger, axe, mace, chariot scythe, 
etc.; with a rude artillery consisting of 
catapults, ballistse, and battering-rams. 
From the descriptions of Homer we know 
that almost all the Grecian armor, defen¬ 
sive and offensive, in his time was of 
bronze; though iron was sometimes used. 








Arms and Armor 


Arms and Armor 


The lance, spear, and javelin were the 
principal weapons of this age among the 
Greeks. The bow is not often mentioned. 
Among ancient nations the Egyptians 
seem to have been most accustomed to 
the use of the bow, which was the prin¬ 
cipal projectile weapon of the Egyptian 
infantry. Peculiar to the Egyptians was 
a defensive weapon intended to catch and 
break the sword of the enemy. With the 
Assyrians the bow was a favorite wea¬ 
pon ; but with them lances, spears, and 
javelins were in more common use than 
with the Egyptians. Most of the large 
engines of war, chariots with scythes pro¬ 
jecting at each side from the axle, cata¬ 
pults, and ballistae, seem to have been of 
Assyrian origin. During the historical 
age of Greece the characteristic weapon 
w r as a heavy spear from 21 to 24 feet in 
length. The sword used by the Greeks 
was short, and was worn on the right 
side. The Roman sword was from 22 


mentioned in England in 1338, and there 
seems to be no doubt that they were used 
by the English at the siege of Cambrai 
in 1339. The projectiles first used for 
cannon were of stone. Hand firearms 
date from the fifteenth century. At first 
they. required two men to serve them, 
and it was necessary to rest the muzzle 
on a stand in aiming and firing. The first 
improvement was the invention of the 
match-lock, about 1476; this was followed 
by the wheel-lock, and about the middle 
of the seventeenth century by the flint¬ 
lock, which was in universal use until it 
was superseded by the percussion-lock, 
the invention of a Scotch clergyman early 
in the nineteenth century. The needle- 
gun dates from 1827. Since that date 
a great many improvements have been 
made, including the magazine rifle and 
the machine gun, while the power of can¬ 
nons has enormously increased. The only 
important weapon not a firearm that has 



to 24 inches in length, straight, two- 
edged, and obtusely pointed, and as by the 
Greeks was worn on the right side. It 
was used principally as a stabbing wea¬ 
pon. It was originally of bronze. The 
most characteristic weapon of the Roman 
legionary soldier, however, was the pilum, 
which was a kind of pike or javelin, some 
6 feet or more in length. The pilum was 
sometimes used at close quarters, but 
more commonly it was thrown. The 
favorite weapons of the ancient Germanic 
races were the battle-axe, the lance or 
dart, and the sword. The weapons of the 
Anglo-Saxons were spears, axes, swords, 
knives, and maces or clubs. The Nor¬ 
mans had similar weapons, and were well 
furnished with archers and cavalry. The 
cross-bow was a comparatively late in¬ 
vention introduced by the Normans. 
Gunpowder was not used in Europe to 
discharge projectiles till the beginning of 
the fourteenth century. Cannon are first 


been invented since the introduction of 
gunpowder is the bayonet, which is be¬ 
lieved to have been invented about 1650. 
See Gannon, Musket , Rifle , etc. 

Some kind of defensive covering was 
probably of almost as early invention as 
weapons of offense. The principal nieces 
of defensive armor used by the ancients 
were shields, helmets, cuirasses, and 
greaves. In the earliest ages of Greece 
the shield is described as of immense size, 
but in the time of the Peloponnesian war 
(about b.c. 420) it was much smaller. 
The Romans had two sorts of shields; 
the scutum, a large oblong rectangular 
highly convex shield, carried by the le¬ 
gionaries ; and the parma, a small round 
or oval flat shield, carried by the light¬ 
armed troops and the cavalry. In the de¬ 
clining days of Rome the shields became 
larger and more varied in form. The 
helmet was a characteristic piece of armor 
among the Assyrians, Greeks, Etruscans, 






Arms and Armor 


Armstrong 


and Romans. Like all other body armor, 
it was usually made of bronze. The hel¬ 
met of the historical age of Greece was 
distinguished by its lofty crest. The Ro¬ 
man helmet in the time of the early em¬ 
perors fitted close to the head, and had 
a neckguard and hinged cheek-pieces 
fastened under the chin, and a small bar 
across the face for a visor. Both Greeks 
and Romans wore cuirasses, at one time 
of bronze, but latterly of flexible mate¬ 
rials. Greaves for the legs were worn by 
both, but among the Romans usuallv on 
one leg. The ancient Germans had large 
shields of plaited osier covered with 
leather; afterwards their shields were 
small, bound with iron, and studded with 
bosses. The Anglo-Saxons had round or 
oval shields of wood, covered with leather, 
and having a boss in tbe center; and they 
had also corselets, or coats of mail, 
strengthened with iron rings. The Nor¬ 
mans were well protected by mail; their 
shields were somewhat triangular in shape, 
their helmets conical. In Europe gener¬ 
ally metal armor was used from the tenth 
to the eighteenth century, and at first con¬ 
sisted of a tunic made of iron rings firmly 
sewn flat upon strong cloth or leather. 
The rings were afterwards interlinked 
one with another so as to form a garment 
of themselves, called cliain-mail. Great 
variety is found in the pattern of the ar¬ 
mor, and in some cases small pieces of 
metal were used instead of rings, form¬ 
ing what is called scale-armor. A suit 
of armor consisting of larger pieces of 
metal, called plate-armor , was now in¬ 
troduced, and the whole body came to be 
incased in a heavy metal covering. The 
various forms of ring or scale-armor were 



Horse-armor of Maximilian I of Germany. 

o, Chamfron. 6, Manefaire. c, Poitrinal, poitrel, 
or breastplate, d, Croupiere or buttock-piece. 

gradually superseded by the plate-armor, 
which continued to be worn until long 
after the introduction of firearms and 
field artillery. A complete suit of armor 


was an elaborate and costly equipment, 

consisting of a number of different pieces, 

each with its distinctive name. In 

modern European armies the metal 

cuirass is still to 

some extent in use, i 

the cuirassiers being U 

heavy cavalry; and it II 

is said that this piece 

of armor proves a 

useful defense against | 

rifle bullets. During sf(l J| 

all the time that the " 

use of heavy armor vL 

prevailed, the horse- 

men, who alone were Mbr./ Ho 

fully armed, formed 

the principal strength if/ 

of armies; and in- I t I [ 

fantry were generally [4 If I 

regarded as of hardly f ^-V / 

any account. Eng- . /§g|l 

land was, however, an 

exception, as the Eng- 

lish archers were al- Allecret (Light Plate) 

most at all times, be- Armor, a.d. 1540 . 

fore the invention of 

gunpowder, an important and sometimes 

the chief force in the army. The bow 

( long-how ) of the English archers was 

from 5 to 6 feet in length, and the arrow 

discharged from it was itself a yard long. 

The long-bow continued in general use 

in England till the end of the reign of 

Elizabeth, and even as late as 1627 there 

was a body of English archers in the pay 

of Richelieu at the siege of La Rochelle. 

Armstrong ( Q ar “' st . rftng) ’ , j0IIN ; 

° Scottish poet and 
physician, born about 1709; died 1779. 
After studying medicine in Edinburgh 
he settled in London. In 1744 he pub¬ 
lished his chief work, the Art of Pre¬ 
serving Health, a didactic poem. This 
work raised his reputation to a height 
which his subsequent efforts scarcely sus¬ 
tained. His later works comprised 
Miscellanies (of no value), Medical Es¬ 
says, and a work of travel named Launce- 
lot Temple. 

Armstrong 1 (arm'strang), Samuel 

° Chapman, educator, born 
in 1839 in the Hawaiian Islands, the 
son of a missionary. He graduated at 
Williams College in 1862, entered the 
army as a captain, and in 1863 was made 
lieutenant-colonel in the 9th U. S. colored 
infantry. He left the service in 1865 as 
brevet brigadier-general and was put in 
charge of the Freedman’s Bureau station 
ft Hampton. Va. In 1868 he opened 
the Hampton Normal and Agricultural 
Institute for negroes, Indians being 
subsequently admitted. Here he remained 
until his death in 1893, working among 








Armstrong 


Army 


his colored wards with the greatest de¬ 
votion and the highest success. 
Arm'^troncr William George, Lord, 
engineer and mechanical 
inventor, horn at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 10th 
Nov., 1810. He was trained as a solici¬ 
tor, and practised as such for some time, 
though his tastes scarcely lay in that di¬ 
rection. Among his early inventions were 
the hydro-electric machine, a powerful 
apparatus for producing frictional electric¬ 
ity, and the hydraulic crane. In 1846 the 
Elswick works, near Newcastle, were es¬ 
tablished for the manufacture of his cranes 
and other heavy iron machinery, and these 
w r orks are now among the most extensive 
of their kind. Here the first rifled ord¬ 
nance gun which bears his name was 
made in 1854. (See next article.) His 
improvements in the manufacture of guns 
and shells led to his being appointed engi¬ 
neer of rifled ordnance under government, 
and he was knighted in 1858. This ap¬ 
pointment came to an end in 1863, since 
which time his ordnance has taken a 
prominent place in the armaments of 
different countries. He was raised to the 
peerage as Baron Armstrong in 1887. 
Died Dec., 1900. 

Armstrong Gun, i"5j‘ d of f Sr% 

inventor (see the preceding article), made 
of wrought-iron, principally of spirally- 
coiled bars so disposed as to bring the 
metal into the most favorable position for 
the strain to which it is to be exposed, 
and occasionally having an inner tube 
or core of steel, rifled with numerous shal¬ 
low grooves. The size of these guns 
ranges from the smallest field-piece to 
pieces of the highest caliber. The pro¬ 
jectile is coated with lead, and inserted 
into a chamber behind the bore. This 
the explosion drives forward, compressing 
its soft coating into the grooves, so as 
to give it a rotary motion and at the 
same time obviate windage. Both breech¬ 
loading and muzzle-loading Armstrong 
guns are made. 

Ar'mv a c °ll ect i° n or body of men 
•* 1A 11a «7 > armed for war, and organized 
in companies, battalions, regiments, bri¬ 
gades, or similar divisions, under proper 
officers. Ancient armies from the time 
of Rameses II (Sesostris) . of Egypt 
downwards, underwent a series of pro¬ 
gressive improvements under the Assyr¬ 
ians, Persians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, 
till they reached a high degree of perfec¬ 
tion under the Romans. In Rome every 
citizen from the age of seventeen to forty- 
six was bound to serve in the army. Un¬ 
der the republic a levy took place every 
year soon after the election of the consuls. 
It was superintended by the military trib¬ 


unes, who at once formed the new levies 
into legions. (See Legion.) Under the 
empire a standing army was required for 
maintenance of order in the interior and 
the defense of the frontiers. In the reign 
of Augustus the strength of this army 
reached 450,000 men. The earliest 
military system of the Teutonic races con¬ 
sisted of the armed freemen, ruled by 
elected leaders, but even then there was 
a personal following or bodyguard of the 
king or leader. Among the countries of 
modern Europe the foundation of a 
standing army was first laid in France. 
Charles VII of France issued an ordi¬ 
nance for the creation of a number of 
troops of horse, and a corresponding body 
of infantry, the whole force amounting to 
25,000 men. The superiority of such a 
body over an assemblage of feudal troops 
was soon proved, and other States imi¬ 
tated the example of France. By the be¬ 
ginning of the sixteenth century France, 
Germany, and Spain were all in posses¬ 
sion of considerable standing armies. 
Since the middle of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury a great change has taken place in 
the composition of armies through the 
reintroduction of the principle of the 
universal liability of all men capable of 
bearing arms to military service, or, in 
other words, through the raising of arm¬ 
ies by a general conscription, which is 
now done in every European country 
except Great Britain. 

Before the Norman conquest the armed 
force of England consisted essentially of 
a national militia (called fyrd), in which 
every landholder was bound to serve when 
called upon; but the king and some of the 
earls maintained bodies of troops out of 
their private means. Under William the 
Conqueror and his immediate successors 
the feudal system of France was intro¬ 
duced, the whole kingdom being divided 
into upwards of 60,000 knights' fees , 
every tenant of a fee being bound to at¬ 
tend his lord with horse and arms (or 
provide a substitute) at his own cost for 
forty days in each year. When one man 
held many fees he was bound to furnish 
the king with one fully equipped horseman 
for every knight’s fee. In course of time 
it became customary for the king, when 
the holder of a fee was unable or unwilling 
to render the service required by his ten¬ 
ure to accept instead a pecuniary fine 
( scutage) ; and these fines enabled the 
king either to maintain additional troops 
or to pay the feudal troops to prolong 
their service. The feudal army thus 
created almost entirely superseded the na¬ 
tional levies of the Anglo-Saxon period, 
yet these were not altogether given up, 
and have survived to the present day in 



Army Corps 


Arndt 


two institutions, the posse comitatus and 
the militia. 

From the accession of Charles I till 
the reign of William III the army was 
a constant cause of dispute between the 
king and the Parliament, the latter fear¬ 
ing that a standing army would be used, 
as it was elsewhere, as an instrument of 
tyranny. Under the Commonwealth the 
first standing army was maintained, but 
after the Restoration it was reduced to 
the royal guards, besides what was neces¬ 
sary for two or three garrisons. Dur¬ 
ing the reign of Charles II the forces, of 
England were increased by the addition 
of a few other regiments, among which 
was the 1st or Royal Scots, originally 
the Scottish guard of the kings of France, 
transferred to England shortly after the 
Restoration. After Monmouth’s rebellion, 
in the reign of James II, there was 
maintained in England a force of 20.000 
men, but at the Revolution this army 
was to a great extent disbanded.. The 
Bill of Rights declared the keeping of 
a standing army within the kingdom ex¬ 
cept with the consent of Parliament to 
be unlawful; but it was found necessary 
to grant that consent in order to subdue 
the adherents of James in Ireland, and in 
the first year of William’s reign the army 
was formally recognized on the basis on 
which it still exists, that its pay, and 
hence its strength, remain entirely under 
the control of the House of Commons. 
The British army is raised entirely by 
voluntary enlistment, in this respect 
differing from those, of the continent. 
The army of the United States is based 
on the same principle, although enforced 
service became necessary to some extent 
during the Civil war. Under the most 
recent Act of Congress, that of 1908, the 
strength of the army is limited to 100,000, 
a number greater than its actual strength. 
But recent laws make the trained State 
militia available in the event of war, thus 
much increasing the actual strength. The 
total war strength of the nations is 
estimated at about 20,000,000. See Mi¬ 
litia, Volunteers, Yeomanry, Cavalry. 

Corns one ^e l ar S est divi- 

* 9 sions of an army in 
the field, comprising all arms, and com¬ 
manded by a general officer; subdivided 
into divisions, which may or may not com¬ 
prise all arms. 

Army Worm. ver ^ destructive 
J w 9 larva of the moth 

Heliophila or Leucania unipuncta, so 
called from its habit of marching in 
compact bodies of enormous number, 
devouring almost every green thing it 
meets. It is about l 1 /^ inches long, green¬ 
ish in color, with black stripes, and is 



found in various parts of the world, but 
is particularly destructive in North Amer¬ 
ica. The larva of Scidra militaris, a 
European two-winged fly, is also called 
army worm. 

Arnat'to, or Annotta. See Annatto. 


Am and (dr-no), Henri, pastor and 
xxi na uu military leader of the vaudoig 

of Piedmont; born 1641; died 1721. At 
the head of his people he successfully 
withstood the united forces of France and 
Savoy, and afterwards did good service 
against France in the war of the Spanish 
Succession. He had to retire from his 
country, and was followed by a number 
of his people, to whom he discharged the 
duties of pastor till his death. 

A man Id (dr-no), the name of a 
French family, several mem¬ 
bers of which greatly distinguished them¬ 
selves.— Antoine, an eminent French 
advocate, was born 1560; died 1619. Dis¬ 
tinguished as a zealous defender of the 
cause of Henry IV and for his power¬ 
ful and successful defense of the Univer¬ 
sity of Paris against the Jesuits in 1594. 
His family formed the nucleus of the sect 
of the Jansenists (see Jansenius) in 
France.—His son Antoine, called the 
Great Arnauld, was born February 6, 
1612, at Paris; died August 9, 1694, at 
Brussels. He devoted himself to theology, 
and was received in 1641 among the doc¬ 
tors of the Sorbonne. He engaged in all 
the quarrels of the French Jansenists 
with the Jesuits, the clergy, and the gov¬ 
ernment, was the chief Jansenist writer, 
and was considered their head. Excluded 
from the Sorbonne, he retired to Port 
Royal, where he wrote, in conjunction 
with his friend Nicole, a celebrated system 
of logic (hence called the Port Royal 
Logic). On account of persecution he 
fled, in 1679, to the Netherlands. His 
works, which are mainly controversies 
with the Jesuits or the Calvinists, are 
very voluminous.—His brother Robert, 
born 1588, died 1674, was a person of in¬ 
fluence at the French court, but latterly 
retired to Port Royal, where he wrote a 
translation of Josephus and other works. 
Robert’s daughter, Ang£lique, born 1624, 
died 1684, was eminent in the religious 
world, and was subject to persecution on 
account of her unflinching adherence to 
Jansenism. 

Ar'nauts. See Albania. 


Arndt (& rnt ), Ernst Moritz, a Ger¬ 
man patriot and poet; was 
born 1769; died 1860. He was appointed 
professor of history at Greifswald in 1806, 
and stirred up the national feeling against 
Napoleon in his work Geist der Zeit 



Arndt 


Arnobius 


( ‘ Spirit of the Time ’ ). In 1812-13 he 
zealously promoted the war of independ¬ 
ence by a number of pamphlets, poems, 
and spirited songs, among which it is 
sufficient to refer to his Was ist des 
Deutschen Yaterland? Der Gott, der 
Eisen wachsen Hess, and Was blasen die 
Trompeten? Husaren heraus! which 
were caught up and sung from one end of 
Germany to the other. In 1817 he mar¬ 
ried a sister of the theologian Schleier- 
macher, and settled at Bonn in order to 
undertake the duties of professor of his¬ 
tory. He was, however, suspended till 
1840 on account of his liberal opinions, 
when he was restored to his chair on 
the accession of Frederick William 
IV. 

Arndt Johann, celebrated German 
u > mystic theologian ; born 1555 ; 
died 1621. His principal work, Wahres 
Christenthum ( ‘ True Christianity ’ ), is 
still popular in Germany, and has been 
translated into almost all European 
languages. 

Arne ( arn )> Thomas Augustine, Eng¬ 
lish composer; born at London 
1710; died 1778. His first opera, Rosa¬ 
mond, was performed in 1733 at Lin¬ 
coln’s Inn Fields, and was received with 
great applause. Then followed Fielding’s 
comic opera, Tom Thumb, or the Tragedy 
of Tragedies. His style in the Comus 
(1738) is still more original and culti¬ 
vated. To him we owe the national air 
Rule Britannia, originally given in a 
popular piece called the Masque of Alfred. 
After having composed two oratorios and 
several operas he received the title of 
Doctor of Music at Oxford. He com¬ 
posed, also, music for several of the songs 
in Shakespere’s dramas, and various pieces 
of instrumental music. 

Avyipp (ar-ne'), one of the numerous 
■ n “ L Indian varieties of the buffalo 

( Bubdlus ami), remarkable as being the 
largest animal of the ox kind known. It 
measures about 7 feet high at the shoul¬ 
ders, and from 9 to 10*4 feet long from 
the muzzle to the root of the tail. It 
is found chiefly in the forests at the 
base of the Himalayas. 

Arnhem or Arnheim (arn'him), a 

iirnnem, town in Holland> prov . of 

Gelderland, 18 miles southwest of Zut- 
phen, on the right bank of the Rhine. 
Pleasantly situated, it is a favorite resi¬ 
dential resort, and it contains many 
interesting public buildings; manufac¬ 
tures cabinet wares, mirrors, carriages, 
mathematical instruments, etc. ; has 
paper mills, and its trade is important. 
In 1795 it was stormed by the French, 
who were driven from it by the Prus¬ 
sians in 1813. Pop. 56,812. 


Arnhem land, a p° rtion f of . f the 

5 northern territory 
of S. Australia, lying west of the Gulf of 
Carpentaria, and forming a sort of penin¬ 
sula. 

Arni ( ar ' n e), a town of Madras, on the 
Cheyair River, 16 miles south of 
Arcot; formerly a large military station ; 
stormed by Clive in 1751, and scene of 
defeat of Hyder Ali by Sir Eyre Coote in 
1782. Pop. 4500. 

Arnica (ar'ni-ka), a genus of plants, 
natural order Composite, con¬ 
sisting of some twelve species, one of 
which is found in Central Europe, A. 
montdna (leopard’s bane or mountain 
tobacco), and in the Western States. It 
has a perennial root, a stem about 2 feet 
high, bearing on the summit flowers of a 
dark golden yellow. In every part of the 
plant there is an acrid resin and a volatile 
oil, and in the flowers an acrid bitter prin¬ 
ciple called arnicin. The root contains 
also a considerable quantity of tannin. A 
tincture of it is employed as an external 
application to wounds and bruises. 

Arilim Elizabeth von, a 

German writer, also known as 
Bettina, wife of Louis Achim von Arnim, 
and sister of the poet Clemens Brentano; 
born at Frankford in 1785; died at Berlin 
1859. Even in her childhood she mani¬ 
fested an inclination towards eccentrici¬ 
ties and poetical peculiarities of many 
kinds. She entered on a correspondence 
with Goethe, and contracted an affected 
and fantastic love towards him—then in 
his sixtieth year. In 1835 she published 
Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde 
( ‘ Correspondence with a Child ’ ), con¬ 
taining, among others, the letters that she 
alleged to have passed between her and 
Goethe. Her later writings were of a 
politico-social character.—Her husband, 
Ludwig Achim von Arnim, born at 
Berlin in 1781, died 1831; distinguished 
himself as a writer of novels. In concert 
with her brother, Clemens Brentano, he 
published a collection of popular German 
songs and ballads entitled Des Knaben 
Wunderhorn. —Her daughter, Gisela von 
Arnim, is known in literature by her 
Dramatische Werke, 3 vols. 1857-63. 
AmO 5 anc * Arnus), a river of 

u Italy which rises in the Etrus¬ 
can Apennines, makes a sweep to the 
south and then trends westwards, divides 
Florence into two parts, washes Pisa, and 
falls, 4 miles below it, into the Tuscan 
Sea, after a course of 130 miles. 

Arnobius ( A r '? s .'- bi ' U8) ’ .. an earIy 

Christian writer, was a 
teacher of rhetoric at Sicca Veneria, in 
Numidia, and in 303 became a Christian; 
he died about 326. He wrote seven books 



Arnold 


Arnott 


of Disputationes adversus Gentes, in which 
he sought to refute the objections of the 
heathens against Christianity. This work 
betrays a defective knowledge of Chris¬ 
tianity, but is rich in materials for the 
understanding of Greek and Roman 
mythology. 

Ar-nnld (ar'nold), Benedict, born in 
xiinuiu Connecticut in 1740> an able 

general in the Revolutionary war, but 
who, through dissatisfaction, attempted 
to betray the strong fortress of West 
Point, with all the arms and stores there 
deposited, into the hands of the British. 
The project failed through the capture of 
Major Andre, and Arnold made his escape 
to the British lines. He received a com¬ 
mission as major-general in the British 
army, and took part in several maraud¬ 
ing expeditions. His name was associ¬ 
ated with infamy, even in England, and 
his after life was miserable. Died in 
London in 1801. 

Ar'nold SlR Edwin > p° et » Sanskrit 

9 scholar, and journalist, born 
in England in 1832. Educated at Oxford, 
where he took the Newdegate prize for a 
poem entitled the Feast of Belshazzar in 
1852. He was successively second master 
in King Edward Vi’s College at Birming¬ 
ham, and principal of the Sanskrit College 
at Poonah, in Bombay. In 1861 he joined 
the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph. 
He was the author of Poems, narrative 
and lyrical, numerous translations from 
the Greek and Sanskrit; The Light of 
Asia, a poem presenting the life and 
teaching of Gautama, the founder of 
Buddhism: The Light of the World, etc. 
He died March 22, 1904. 

Ar'nold Matthew > English critic, es- 

9 sayist, and poet, was born 
at Laleham, near Staines, in 1822, being 
a son of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby. He was 
educated at Winchester, Rugby, and Ox¬ 
ford, and became a Fellow of Oriel Col¬ 
lege. He was private secretary to Lord 
Lansdowne, 1847-51; appointed inspec¬ 
tor of schools, 1851; professor of poetry 
at Oxford, 1858; author of several 
volumes of poetry, Essays in Criticism; 
On the Study of Celtic Literature; 
Literature and Dogma; volumes of es¬ 
says and other works. He enjoyed high 
reputation for critical ability and 
literary skill. He died April 15, 1888. 
Ar'nold Thomas, head-master of Rug- 

*by School, and professor of 
modern history in the University of Ox¬ 
ford, born at Cowes, in the Isle of 
Wight, in 1795; died in 1842. He entered 
Oxford in his sixteenth year, and in 1815 
he was elected Fellow of Oriel College. 
After taking deacon’s orders he settled 
at Laleham, near Staines, where he em¬ 


ployed himself in preparing young men 
for the universities. In 1828 he was ap¬ 
pointed head-master of Rugby School, 
and devoted himself to his new duties 
with the greatest ardor. While giving 
due prominence to the classics, he de¬ 
prived them of their exclusiveness by in¬ 
troducing various other branches into 
his course, and he was particularly care¬ 
ful that the education which he furnished 
should be in the highest sense moral and 
Christian. His success was remarkable. 
Not only did Rugby School become 
crowded beyond any former precedent, 
but the superiority of Dr. Arnold’s sys¬ 
tem became so generally recognized that 
it may be justly said to have done much 
for the general improvement of the public 
schools of England. In 1841 he was ap¬ 
pointed professor of modern history at 
Oxford, and delivered his introductory 
course of lectures with great success. 
His chief works are his edition of 
Thucydides, his Roman History, unhap¬ 
pily left unfinished, and his Sermons. 
There is an admirable memoir of him by 
A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster 
(London, two vols., 1845). 

Ar'nold of Brescia, 1 

political agitator and victim of the twelfth 
century. He was one of the disciples of 
Abelard, and attracted a considerable 
following by preaching against the pope’s 
temporal power. Excommunicated by 
Innocent II, he withdrew to Zurich, but 
soon reappearing in Rome he w r as taken 
prisoner and burned (1155). 

Ar'non a river in Palestine, the bound- 

9 ary between the country of the 
Moabites and that of the Amorites, 
latterly of the Israelites, a tributary of 
the Dead Sea. 


Ar'not, Ar'nut, * • nai ? e th <? 

9 9 agreeably flavored 

farinaceous tubers of the earth-nut or 
pig-nut ( Bunium flexuosum and B. Bul- 
hocastdnum). See Earth-nut. 

Al'nott, -^ EIL ’ an eminent physi- 
9 cian and physicist, was born at 
Arbroath in 1788; died in 1874. Having 
graduated as M.A. at Aberdeen, he went 
to England, and was appointed a surgeon 
in the East India Company’s naval 
service. In 1811 he commenced practice 
in London. In 1837 he was appointed ex¬ 
traordinary physician to the queen. In 
1827 he published Elements of Physics, 
and in 1838 a treatise on Warming and 
Ventilation, etc. He is widely known 
as the inventor of a stove, which is re¬ 
garded as one of the most economical ar¬ 
rangements for burning fuel; a ventilat¬ 
ing chimney-valve, and his water-bed for 
the protection of the sick against bedsores. 




f * ' u f 


opyright by The Century Co. From the Original by Howard Pyle. 


17—1 


ARNOLD AND HIS WIFE IN ENGLAND 































Arnotto 


Arran 


Arnot'to. See Annatto. 

Arnchero* (arnz'berft), a town in 
o Prussia, prov. Westphalia, 
capital of the government of same name, 
on the Ruhr. Pop. 8490. 

Avnc+afH (arn'stat), a town in Ger- 

iirnstaax many> pr i nC ipaiity of 

Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, 11 miles 
s. by w. of Erfurt, upon the Gera, 
which divides it into two parts. Has 
manufactures in leather, etc., and a good 
trade in grain and timber. Pop. 14,413. 

A rncnzalrlp (arnz'val-de), a town of 
iirnswaiae Prilssia> prov . Branden¬ 
burg, 39 miles s. e. of Stettin. Pop. 
8633. 

Arrmlf (ar'nulf), great grandson of 
u Charlemagne, elected King of 
Germany in a.d. 887; invaded Italy, 
captured Rome, and was crowned em¬ 
peror by the pope (896) ; died a.d. 899. 
ArniHpfP (a-roi'de-e), an order of 
ah uiuccc mon0 cotyledonous plants ; 

same as Aracece. 

Arnl<spn (ar'ol-sen), a German town, 
Aiiuiacn capital of the principality 
of Waldeck. Pop. 3000. 

A mm 9 (a-ro'ma), the distinctive 
fragrance exhaled from 
spices,plants, etc.; generally an agreeable 
odor, a sweet smell. 

Aromatics Uf-o-maPiks), drugs or 
other substances which 
yield a fragrant smell, and often a 
warm pungent taste, as calamus ( Acorus 
Calamus), ginger, cinnamon, cassia, 
lavender, rosemary, laurel, nutmegs, car¬ 
damoms, pepper, pimento, cloves, vanilla, 
saffron. Some of them are used medicin¬ 
ally as tonics, stimulants, etc. 

Aromatic vinegar, * 

perfume made by adding the essential oils 
of lavender, cloves, etc., and often cam¬ 
phor, to crystallizable acetic acid. It is 
a powerful excitant in fainting, languor, 
and headache. 

ArOIia (a-ro'na), an ancient Italian 
w town near the s. extremity of 
Lago Maggiore. Pop. 4700. In the 
vicinity is the colossal statue of San 
Carlo Borromeo, 70 feet in height, ex¬ 
clusive of pedestal, 42 feet high. 
Aroostook fe-ros'tuk), a river of the 

Northeastern United 
States and New Brunswick, a tributary 
of the St. John, length 140 miles. 

Aroura, Arura an an- 

J cient Greek meas¬ 

ure of surface, equal to 21.904 English 
square feet, or 9 poles 106.3 feet. 
Amad (& r_ pad'), the hero of Hungarian 
P ballad and romance, founder of 
the Kingdom of Hungary, born about 


870, died 907. The Arpad dynasty 
reigned till 1301. 

Arnpp’P’in (ar-pej'o), the distinct 
sound of the notes of 
an instrumental chord; the striking the 
notes of a chord in rapid succession, as 
in the manner of touching the harp in¬ 
stead of playing them simultaneously. 
Arnent (&r-pan), formerly a French 
P measure for land, equal to 

five-sixths of an English acre; but it 
varied in different parts of France. 
Amino (ar-pe'no; anc. Arpinum), a 
P town of Southern Italy, prov¬ 

ince of Caserta, celebrated as the birth¬ 
place of Caius Marius and Cicero. It 
manufactures woolens, linen, paper, etc. 
Pop. 10,607. 

A rn 119 (ar'kw&), a village of Northern 
^ Italy, about 13 miles s. w. of 
Padua, where the poet Petrarch died, 18th 
July, 1374. A monument has been 
erected over his grave. 

Arauebus Ur'kwe-bus), a hand-gun; 

^ a species of firearm re¬ 

sembling a musket anciently used. It 
was fired from a forked rest, and some¬ 
times cocked by a wheel, and carried a 
ball that weighed nearly two ounces. A 
larger kind used in fortresses carried a 
heavier shot. 

Arraca'cha. See Aracacha. 
Arracan'. See Aracan. 

Ar'rack. See Arack. 

Ar'ragon. See Aragon. 

A v-rali (ar'ra), a town of British 
xxi i an i n Shahabad district, 

Bengal, rendered famous during the 
mutiny of 1857 by the heroic resistance 
of a body of twenty civilians and fifty 
Sikhs, cooped up within a detached house, 
to a force of 3000 sepoys, who were ulti¬ 
mately routed and overthrown by the 
arrival of a small European reinforce¬ 
ment. Pop 42,998. 

Arraignment t 

setting a prisoner at the bar of a court 
to plead guilty or not guilty to the matter 
charged in an indictment or information. 
The pleas are, the general issue, i. e., 
not guilty, or in abatement or in bar; the 
prisoner may demur to the indictment 
or he may confess the fact. 

Arran (ar'ran), an island of Scot- 
land, in the Firth of Clyde, 
part of Bute county; area, 165 square 
miles, of w’hich about one-tenth is under 
cultivation. The inlet of Lamlash, on the 
coast, forms a capacious bay, completely 
sheltered by Holy Island, and is one of 



Arran 


Arrowhead 


the best natural harbors in the west of 
Scotland. The geology of Arran has at¬ 
tracted much attention, as furnishing 
within a comparatively narrow space dis¬ 
tinct sections of the great geological for¬ 
mations ; while the botany possesses al¬ 
most equal interest both in the variety 
and the rarity of many of its plants. 
Pop. about 5000. 

A wan Earls of. See Hamilton, 

Arran, Family of 
Arrangement 

tion of a composition to voices or in¬ 
struments for which it was not originally 
written; also, a piece so adapted. 

Ar'ran Islands. See Aran. 


Arraro'ba. See Araroba. 

Arras (a-ra), a town of France, capi¬ 
tal of the department Pas-de- 
Calais, well built, with several handsome 
squares and a citadel; cathedral, public 
library, botanic garden, museum and 
numerous flourishing industries. In the 
middle ages it was famous for the manu¬ 
facture of tapestry, to which the Eng¬ 
lish applied the name of the town itself. 
Pop. (1906') 20,738. 

Arrest (ar-rest') is the apprehending 
or restraining of one’s person, 
which, in civil cases, can take place 
legally only by process in execution of 
the command of some court or officers of 
justice; but in criminal cases any man 
may arrest without warrant or precept, 
and every person is liable to arrest with¬ 
out distinction, but no man is to be ar¬ 
rested unless charged with such a 
crime as will at least justify holding him 
to bail when taken. Although ordinarily 
applied to any legal seizure of a person, 
arrest is the term more properly used in 
civil cases, and apprehension in criminal 
cases. 

Arrest of Judgment, th 0 l 

stopping of a judgment after verdict, for 
causes assigned. Courts have power to 
arrest judgment for intrinsic causes ap¬ 
pearing upon the face of the record ; as 
when the declaration varies from the orig¬ 
inal writ; when the verdict differs 
materially from the pleadings; or when 
the case laid in the declaration is not 
sufficient in point of law to found an 
action upon. 

Arre'tium. See Arezzo. 


Arrhenatherum 


(&r-en-ath'e-rum), 
a genus of oat¬ 
like grasses, of which A. elatius, some¬ 
times called French rye-grass, is a valu¬ 
able fodder plant. 


Arr'hpninq (ar-ren'i-us), Svante, a 
noted gwedish chemist> 
born at Upsala in 1850; educated at the 
University of Upsala, and became pro¬ 
fessor of chemistry in the University of 
Stockholm in 1891. He made many im¬ 
portant original observations, and ad¬ 
vanced the widely accepted theory of 
electrolytic dissociation in liquids. He 
has written on the Galvanic Conducti- 
bility of Electrolytes, and in German on 
electrochemistry. 

Arria ( ar ’ r i" a )» the heroic wife of a 
Roman named Caecina Paetus. 
Paetus was condemned to death in 42 
a.d., for his share in a conspiracy against 
the emperor Claudius, and was encour¬ 
aged to suicide by his wife, who stabbed 
herself and then handed the dagger to her 
husband with the words, ‘ It does not 
hurt, Paetus! ’ 

Arrian ( ar ' ri - an )> or Flavius Arri- 
anus, a Greek historian, 
native of Nicomedia, flourished in the 
second century, under the emperors Had¬ 
rian and the Antonines. He was first 
a priest of Ceres; but at Rome he be¬ 
came a disciple of Epictetus, was honored 
with the citizenship of Rome, and was 
advanced to the senatorial and even con¬ 
sular dignities. His extant works are: 
The Expedition of Alexander, in seven 
books; a book on the affairs of India; 
an Epistle to Hadrian; a Treatise on 
Tactics; a Periplus of the Sea of Azof 
and the Red Sea; and his Enchiridion, 
an excellent moral treatise, containing 
the discourses of Epictetus. 

Ar'ris * n architecture, the line in 
1 9 which the two straight or 

curved surfaces of a body, forming an 
exterior angle, meet each other. 
Arrnhfl (a-ro'ba; Spanish), a weight 
xx a, formerly used in Spain, and 
still used in the greater part of Central 
and South America. In the States of 
Spanish origin its weight is generally 
equal to 25.35 lbs. avoirdupois; in Brazil 
it equals 32.38 lbs.—Also a measure for 
wine, spirits, and oil, ranging from 2% 
gallons to about 10 gallons. 

Airoe, Danish Island. See Aeroe. 

Arrondissement “ISiniS 

trative district, the subdivision of a de¬ 
partment, or of the quarters of some of 
the larger cities. 

ArrOW ( ar ' 5 )’ a m issile weapon, 
straight, slender, pointed and 
barbed, to be shot with a bow. See 
Archery, Bow. 

Arrowhead ( ar '°-hed; Sagittaria ), 

a genus of aquatic 
plants found in all parts of the world 



Arrowheaded Characters 


Arsenic 


within the torrid and temperate zones; 
nat. order Alismaceae; distinguished by 
possessing barren and fertile flowers, with 
a three-leaved calyx and three colored pet¬ 
als. The common arrowhead (S. sagitti- 
folia) has a tuberous root, nearly globu¬ 
lar, and is known by its arrow-shaped 
leaves with lanceolate straight lobes. 

Arrowheaded Characters. 

iform Writing. 

Arrnw T olrp an expansion of the 

Arrow i«aKe, Columbia River in 

British Columbia, Canada; about 95 m. 
long from n. to s.; often regarded as 
forming two lakes—Upper and Lower 
Arrow Lake. 

Arrow-root a starch largely used 
nKUW 1UUl > for food and for other 
purposes. Arrow-root proper is obtained 
from the rhizomes or rootstocks of several 
species of plants of the genus Maranta 
(nat. order Marantacefe), and perhaps 
owes its name to the scales which cover 
the rhizome, which have some resem- 
b 1 a n c e to the 
point of an ar¬ 
row. Some, how¬ 
ever, suppose that 
the name is due 
to the fact of the 
fresh roots being 
used as an appli- 
cation against 
wounds inflicted 
by poisoned ar¬ 
rows, and others 
say that arrow is 
a corruption of 
a r a, the In¬ 
dian name of 
the plant. The 
species from 
which arrow-root 
is most commonly obtained is M. arundi- 
ndcea, hence called the arrow-root plant. 
Brazilian arrow-root, or tapioca meal, is 
got from the large fleshy root of Mani- 
hot utilissima , after the poisonous juice 
has been got rid of; East Indian arrow- 
root, from the large rootstocks of Cur¬ 
cuma angustifolia , Chinese arrow-root, 
from the creeping rhizomes of Nelum- 
bium speciosum ; English arrow-root, 
from the potato; Portland arrow-root, 
from the corms of Arum maculdtum ; 
and Oswego arrow-root, from Indian 
corn. 

Arrowsmith Aa ' !0I ’ ! j 

distinguished English 
chartographer, born 1750; died 1823; he 
raised the execution of maps to a per¬ 
fection it had never before attained. His 
nephew, John, born 1790, died 1873, was 
no less distinguished in the same field; 



Arrow-root Plant (Ma¬ 
ranta arundin&cSa ).— 
a a, Rhizomes. 


his Atlas of Universal Geography may be 
specially mentioned. 

ArrOVO (ar-ro'yo), the name of two 
* towns of Spain, in Estrema- 
dura, the one, called Arroyo del Puerco 
(population 7094), about 10 miles west 
of Caceres; the other, called Arroyo 
Molinos de Montanches, about 27 miles 
southeast of Caceres, memorable from 
the victory gained by Lord Hill over a 
French force under General G6rard, in 
1811. Pop. 2000. 

Arm or Aru ( ar ' u h Islands, a 
9 group belonging to the Dutch, 
south of western New Guinea, and ex¬ 
tending from north to south about 127 
miles. They are composed of coraline 
limestone, nowhere exceeding 200 feet 
above the sea. and are well wooded and 
tolerably fertile. The natives belong to 
the Papuan race, with an intermixture 
of foreign blood, and are partly Chris¬ 
tians. The chief exports are trepang, 
tortoise-shell, pearls, mother-of-pearl, and 
edible birds’ nests. Pop. of group about 
20 , 000 . 

Arsaces ( ar 'sa-sez), the founder of a 

dynasty of Parthian kings 
(256 B.c.), who, taking their name from 
him. are called Arsacidae. There were 
thirty-one in all. See Parthia. 
ArSamaS ( ar - s a-mas') ? a manufactur¬ 
ing town in the Russian 
government of Nijni-Novgorod, on the 
Tesha, 250 miles east of Moscow, with a 
cathedral and large convent. Pop. 10,891. 

Arsenal (dr ' sen : al )> a r °y al or public 

magazine or place appointed 
for the making, repairing, keeping, and 
issuing of military stores. An arsenal of 
the first class should include factories for 
guns and gun-carriages, and military 
materials of all kinds. All the European 
nations have large and important ar¬ 
senals and there are a number of them in 
the United States, but individually these 
are of minor importance. 

Arsenic ( ar 'sen-ik ; symbol As, atomic 
weight 75), a metallic ele¬ 
ment of common occurrence, being found 
in combination with many other metals 
in a variety of minerals. It is of 
a tin-white color,^ and readily tarnishes 
on exposure to moist air, first changing to 
yellow, then to gray, then black. In hard¬ 
ness it equals copper; it is extremely brit¬ 
tle, and very volatile, beginning to sublime 
before it melts. It burns with a blue 
flame, and emits a smell of garlic. Its 
specific gravity is 5.76. It forms alloys 
with most of the metals. Combined with 
sulphur it forms orpiment and realgar, 
which are the yellow and red sulphides 
of arsenic. Orpiment is the true ar- 
senicum of the ancients. With oxygen 




Arshin 


Artedi 


arsenic forms two compounds, the more 
important of which is arsenous oxide or 
arsenic trioxide (As 2 O s ), which is the 
white arsenic, or simply arsenic of the 
shops. It is usually seen in white, glassy, 
translucent masses, and is obtained by 
sublimation trom several ores containing 
arsenic in combination with metals, par¬ 
ticularly from arsenical pyrites. Of all 
substances arsenic is that which has most 
frequently occasioned death by poisoning, 
both by accident and design. The best 
remedies against the effects of arsenic on 
the stomach are hydrated sesquioxide of 
iron or gelatinous hydrate of magnesia, or 
a mixture of both, with copious draughts 
of bland liquids of a mucilaginous con¬ 
sistence, which serve to procure its com¬ 
plete ejection from the stomach. Oils 
and fats generally, milk, albumen, wheat- 
flour, oatmeal, sugar and syrup have all 
proved useful in counteracting its effect. 
Like many other virulent poisons, it is a 
safe and useful medicine, especially in 
skin diseases, when judiciously employed. 
It is used as a flux for glass, and also for 
forming pigments. The arsenite of cop¬ 
per (Scheele’s green) and a double ar¬ 
senite and acetate of copper (emerald 
green) are largely used by painters; they 
are also used to color paper-hangings for 
rooms, a practice not unaccompanied 
with considerable danger, especially if 
flock-papers are used or if the room is a 
confined one. Arsenic has been too fre¬ 
quently used to give that bright green 
often seen in colored confectionery, and 
to produce a green dye for articles of 
dress and artificial flowers. 

A veil i n (ar-shen'), a Russian measure 
Xllblllll 0 £ equal to 28 inches. 

A rein np (ar-sin'o-e), a city of ancient 
/llblliuc Ejjypt on Lake Moens, said 

to have been founded about b.c. 2300, but 
renamed after Arsinoe, wife and sister of 
Ptolemy II of Egypt, and called also 
Crocodilopolis, from the sacred crocodiles 
kept at it. . 

Arcic (ar'ses), a term applied in 
xliaAa prosody to that syllable in a 
measure where the emphasis is put; in 
elocution, the elevation of the voice, in 
■* distinction from thesis, or its depression. 
Arsis and thesis, in music, are the strong 
position and weak position of the bar. in¬ 
dicated by the down-beat and up-beat in 
marking time. 

Ar«uvn (ar'son), in common law, the 
xxi aun malicious burning of a dwelling- 
house or outhouse of another man, which 
by the common law is felony, and which, 
if homicide result, is murder. Also, the 
willful setting fire to any church, chapel, 
warehouse, mill, barn, agricultural pro¬ 
duce, ship, coal-mine, and the like. In 


Scotland it is called willful fire-raising. 
In the United States and Great Britain 
it is a considerable aggravation if the 
burning is to defraud insurers. 

Art in its most extended sense, as dis- 
, tinguished from nature on the one 
hand and from science on the other, has 
been defined as every regulated operation 
or dexterity by which organized beings 
pursue ends which they know beforehand, 
together with the rules and the result of 
every such operation or dexterity. In 
this wide sense it embraces what are 
usually called the useful arts. In a nar¬ 
rower and purely {esthetic sense it 
designates what is more specifically 
termed the fine arts, as architecture, 
sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. 
The useful arts have their origin in posi¬ 
tive practical needs, and restrict them¬ 
selves to satisfying them. The fine arts 
minister to the sentiment of taste through 
the medium of the beautiful in form, color, 
rhythm, or harmony. See Painting, 
Sculpture, etc.—In the middle ages it 
was common to give certain branches of 
study the name of arts. See Arts. 
Ar+a ( arta )’ a gulf* town, and river of 
Northwestern Greece. The town 
(ancient Ambracia) was transferred by 
Turkey to Greece in 1881 (pop. 8000). 
It stands on the river Arta, which for a 
considerable distance above its mouth 
forms a part of the new boundary be¬ 
tween Greece and Turkey. 

A rta YerXP 5 * (ar-taks-erks'es; Old 
iiriaxerxes p ers . Artakhsathra, ‘the 

mighty’), the name of several Persian 
kings:—1. Artaxerxes, surnamed Lon- 
gimanus, succeeded his father Xerxes I 
b.c. 465. He subjected the rebellious 
Egyptians, terminated the war with 
Athens, governed his subjects in peace, 
and died b.c. 425.—2. Artaxerxes, sur¬ 
named Mnemon, succeeded his father 
Darius II in the year 405 b.c. After 
having vanquished his brother Cyrus he 
made war on the Spartans, who had as¬ 
sisted his enemy, and forced them to 
abandon the Greek cities and islands of 
Asia to the Persians. On his death, b.c. 
359, his son Ochus ascended the throne 
under the name of—3. Artaxerxes 
Ochus (359 to 339 b.c.). After having 
subjected the Phoenicians and Egyptians, 
and displayed great cruelty in both coun¬ 
tries, he was poisoned by his general 
Bagoas. 

Artedi (dr-ta'de), Peter, a Swedish 
naturalist, born 1705, drowned 
at Amsterdam 1735. He studied at Up- 
sala, turned his attention to medicine and 
natural history, and was a friend of Lin¬ 
naeus. His Bibliotheca Ichthyologica and 
Philosophia Ichthyologica, together with 



Artemis 


Artesian 


a life of the author, were published at branches to the head, neck, and upper 
Leyden in 1738. limbs, and downwards to the lower limbs, 

Artemis (ar'te-mis), an ancient Greek etc.; and the pulmonary artery , which 
XXA divinity, identified with the conveys venous blood from the right ven- 

Roman Diana. She was the daughter of tricle to the lungs, to be purified in the 
Zeus (Jupiter) and Leto or Latona, and process of respiration, 
was the twin sister of Apollo, born in the ArteriotORlV (&r-te-ri-ot'o-mi), the 
island of Delos. She is variously repre- * opening or cutting of 

sented as a huntress, with bow and ar- an artery, as, for instance, for the pur- 
rows ; as a goddess of the nymphs, in a pose of blood-letting, to relieve pressure 
chariot drawn by four stags; and as the of the brain in apoplexy, 
moon goddess, with the crescent of the Artesian, (dr-tes'yan) Wells, so 
moon above her forehead. She was a called from the French 

maiden divinity, never conquered by love, province of Artois, where they ap- 
except when Endymion made her feel its pear to have been first used on an ex¬ 
power. She demanded the strictest chas- tensive scale, are perpendicular borings 
tity from her worshipers, and she is into the ground through which water 
represented as having changed Actseon rises to the surface of the soil, producing 
into a stag, and caused him to be torn a constant flow or stream, the ultimate 
in pieces by his own dogs, because he had sources of supply being higher than the 
secretly watched her as she was bathing, mouth of the boring, and the water thus 
The Artemisia was a festival celebrated rising by the well-known law. They are 
in her honor at Delphi. The famous generally sunk in valley plains and dis- 
temple of Artemis at Ephesus was con- tricts where the lower pervious strata 
sidered one of the wonders 
of the world, but the god¬ 
dess worshiped there was 
very different from the 
huntress goddess of Greece, 
being of Eastern origin, 
and regarded as the symbol 
of fruitful nature. 



Artesian Well (d) in the London Basin. 


Artemisia (ar-te-mis'i-a), a genus of are bent into basin-shaped curves. The 
xxi tci <x pi ants 0 f nume rous species, rain falling on the outcrops of these satu- 
nat. order Composite, comprising mug- rates the whole porous bed, so that when 
wort, southern wood, and wormwood, the bore reaches it the water by hy- 
Certain alpine species are the flavoring draulic pressure rushes up towards the 
ingredient in absinthe. See Wormwood, level of the highest portion of the strata. 
Artemisia Q ueen Caria, in Asia The supply is sometimes so abundant as 
xxi tcxiiioxa, ]yjj nor> about 352-350 b.c., to be used extensively as a moving power, 
sister and wife of Mausolus, to whom she and in arid regions for fertilizing the 
erected in her capital, Halicarnassus, a ground, to which purpose artesian springs 
monument, called the Mausoleum, which have been applied from a very remote 
was reckoned among the seven wonders of period. Thus many artesian wells have 
the world. been sunk in the Algerian Sahara which 

A rtpml sinrn (ar-te-mis'i-um), a prom- have proved an immense boon to the dis- 
xxx Lciiixaxu. i on tory in Euboea, an trict. The same has been done in the 
island of the iEgean, near which several arid region of the United States. The 
naval battles between the Greeks and water of most of these is potable, but a 

Persians were fought, B.c. 480. few are a little saline, though not to 

Ar'+pmns "Wcirri See Browne , such an extent as to influence vegetation, 
xxx icx U& <x u. Charles Farrar. The hollows in which London and Paris 

Arteries ( ar . ,ter '. gz )» the system of lie are both perforated in many places 
cylindrical vessels or tubes, by borings of this nature. At London 
membranous, elastic, and pulsatile, which they were first sunk only to the sand, 
convey the blood from the heart to all but more recently into the chalk. One of 

parts of the body, by ramifications which the most celebrated artesian wells is that 

as they proceed diminish in size and in- of Grenelle near Paris, 1798 feet deep, 
crease in number, and terminate in minute completed in 1841, after eight years’ 
capillaries uniting the ends of the arteries work. One at Rochefort, France, is 2765 
with the beginnings of the veins. There feet deep, at Columbus, Ohio, 2775, at 
are two principal arteries or arterial Pesth, Hungary, 3182, and at St. Louis, 
trunks; the aorta : which rises from the Mo., 3843y 2 . Artesian borings have been 
left ventricle of the heart and ramifies made in West Queensland 4000 feet deep 
through the whole body, sending off great At Schladebach, in Prussia, there is one 







Arteveld 


Artichoke 


nearly a mile deep. As the temperature 
of water from great depths is invariably 
higher than that at the surface, artesian 
wells have been made to supply warm 
water for heating manufactories, green¬ 
houses, hospitals, fishponds, etc. The 
petroleum wells of America are of the 
same technical description. These wells 
are now made with larger diameters than 
formerly, and altogether their construc¬ 
tion has been rendered much more easy 
in modern times. See Boring. 

Ar+A'irplrl Artevelde (ar'te-velt, ar'te- 
xil 1C VC1U, the name of two 

men distinguished in the history of the 
Low Countries. 1. Jacob van, a brewer 
of Ghent, born about 1300 ; was selected 
by his fellow-townsmen to lead them in 
their struggles against Count Louis of 
Flanders. In 1338 he was appointed 
captain of the forces of Ghent, and tor 
several years exercised a sort of sovereign 
power. A proposal to make the Black 
Prince, son of Edward III of England, 
governor of Flanders led to an insurrec¬ 
tion, in which Arteveld lost his life 
(1345).—2. Philip, son of the former, 
at the head of the forces of Ghent, gained 
a great victory over the Count of Flan¬ 
ders, Louis ii, and for a time assumed 
the state of a sovereign prince. His reign 
proved short-lived. The Count of Flan¬ 
ders returned with a large French force, 
fully disciplined and skillfully com¬ 
manded. Arteveld was rash enough to 
meet them in the open field at Roosebeke, 
between Courtray and Ghent, in 1382, and 
fell with 25,000 Flemings. 

AvFhvi+ic (ar-thri'tis; Greek artliron, 
211 Hilll/ia a j 0 j nt ^ any inflammatory 

distemper that affects the joints, par¬ 
ticularly chronic rheumatism or gout. 

A vLlvrnflia (ar-thro'di-a), a species of 
xllliliuuia articulation, in which the 

head of one bone is received into a shallow 
socket in another; a ball-and-socket joint. 

Arfhrn-noda (ar-throp'o-da), one of 
iirtnropoud the two primary divi¬ 
sions (Anarthropoda being the other) 
into which modern naturalists have 
divided the subkingdom Annulosa, having 
the body composed of a series of seg¬ 
ments, some always being provided with 
articulated appendages. The division 
comprises Crustaceans, Spiders, Scor¬ 
pions, Centipedes, and Insects. 

Av+Tirrwna (ar-thro-zo'a), a name 
iiriniOZUd, sometimes given to all ar¬ 
ticulated animals, including the arthrop- 
oda and worms. 

A rlli iir (ar'thur), Chester Alan, 
211 ill lli twenty-first president of the 

United States, born in 1830, was the 
son of Scottish parents, his father being 
pastor of Baptist churches in Vermont 


and New York. He chose law as a pro¬ 
fession, and practised in New York. As 
a politician he became a leader in the 
Republican party. During the Civil war 
he was energetic as quarter-master-gen¬ 
eral of New York in getting troops raised 
and equipped. He was afterwards col¬ 
lector of customs for the port of New 
York. In 1880 he was elected vice- 
president, succeeding as president on the 
death of Garfield in 1881, and in this 
position he gave general satisfaction. He 
died Nov. 18, 1886. 

Ar'thur King > a legendary British 
, hero of the sixth century, son 
of Uther Pendragon and the Princess 
Igerna, wife of Gorlois, Duke of Corn¬ 
wall. He married Guinevere or Ginevra; 
established the famous order of the Round 
Table: and reigned, surrounded by a 
splendid court, twelve years in peace. 
After this, as the poets relate, he con¬ 
quered Denmark, Norway, and France, 
slew the giants of Spain, and went to 
Rome. From thence he is said to have 
hastened home on account of the faithless¬ 
ness of his wife, and Modred, his nephew, 
who had stirred up his subjects to rebel¬ 
lion. He subdued the rebels, but died in 
consequence of his wounds, on the island 
of Avalon. The story of Arthur is sup¬ 
posed to have some foundation in fact, 
and has ever been a favorite subject with 
English romanticists and poets. Some 
believe that he was one of the great Celtic 
chiefs who led his countrymen from the 
west of England to resist the settlement 
of the Saxons in the country; but others 
regard him as a leader of the Cymry of 
Cumbria and Strath-Clyde against the 
Saxon invaders of the east coast and the 
Piets and Scots north of the Forth and 
the Clyde. 

Arthur’s Seat, ^^uee ^ 1 

Park in the immediate vicinity of Edin¬ 
burgh ; has an altitude of 822 feet; 
descends rollingTy to the n. and e. over a 
base each way of about five furlongs; 
presents an abrupt shoulder to the s., 
and breaks down precipitously to the w. 
It is composed of a diversity of eruptive 
rocks, with some interposed and uptilted 
sedimentary ones; and derives its name 
somehow from the legendary King Arthur. 
Artinrl (&r'ti-ad; Gr. artios , even- 
1 numbered), in chemistry, a 
name given to an element of even equiv¬ 
alency, as a dyad, tetrad, etc.; opposed 
to a perissad, an element of uneven equiv¬ 
alency, such as a monad, triad, etc. 

Av-HnlirkVp (&r'ti-chok ; Cyndra scoly- 
2iriiciioKc mus) a well 4 nown plant 

of the nat. order Composite, somewhat 
resembling a thistle, with large divided 



Article 


Artiodactyla 


prickly leaves. The erect flower-stem 
terminates in a large round head of 
numerous imbricated oval spiny scales 
which surround the flowers. The fleshy 
bases of the scales with the large recepta¬ 
cle are the parts that are eaten. Arti¬ 
chokes were introduced into England early 
in the sixteenth century. The Jerusalem 
artichoke (a corruption of the Ital. 
girasole, a sunflower), or Helianthus 
tuberosus, is a species of sunflower, whose 
roots are used like potatoes. 

Artiplp (ar'ti.-kl), in grammar, a 
x u ^ c part of speech used before 
nouns to limit or define their application. 
In English a or an is usually called the 
indefinite article (the latter form being 
used before a vowel sound), and the, 
the definite article, but they are also de¬ 
scribed as adjectives. An was originally 
the same as one, and the as that. 

Articles of Confederation 

petual Union of the Colonies (the 
original thirteen), were first submitted by 
Dr. Benjamin Franklin, July 21, 1775, to 
the assembly of State delegates called the 
Continental Congress. They formed the 
basis of a plan reported to that congress, 
July 12, 1776. This, after amendment, 
was agreed to by congress, but was not 
ratified by all the States until March 1, 
1781. The government thus formed was a 
feeble one, and was set aside in 1787 by 
the adoption of the present constitution 
of the United States. 

ArtinlpQ The Six, in English ec- 

> clesiastical history, articles 
imposed by a statute (often called the 
Bloody Statute) passed in 1541, in the 
reign of Henry VIII. They decreed the 
acknowledgment of transubstantiation, the 
sufficiency of communion in one kind, 
the obligation of vows of chastity, celibacy 
of the clergy, and auricular confession. 
The act was repealed in 1549. 

Artiplp<i The Thirty-nine, of the 

> Church of England, a state¬ 
ment of the particular points of doctrine, 
thirty-nine in number, maintained by the 
English Church; first promulgated by a 
convocation held in London in 1562-63, 
and confirmed by royal authority; founded 
on and superseding an older code issued in 
the reign of Edward VI. They were rat¬ 
ified anew in 1604 and 1628. All candi¬ 
dates for ordination must subscribe these 
articles, which are now accepted by the 
Episcopalian Churches of Scotland, Ire¬ 
land, and America. 

Articulata (ar-tik-u-la'ta), the third 

great section of the ani¬ 
mal kingdom according to the arrange¬ 
ment of Cuvier, including all the inverte¬ 
brates with the external skeleton forming 


a series of rings articulated together and 
enveloping the body, distinct respiratory 
organs, and an internal ganglionated 
nervous system along the middle line of 
the body. They are divided into five 
classes, viz., Crustacea, Arachinida, In- 
secta, Myriapoda, and Annelida. The 
term is no longer in use, the first four 
classes being now grouped together un¬ 
der the name of Arthropoda. The whole 
are sometimes called Arthrozoa. 
Artinnlatinn (ar-tik-u-la'shun), in 

Articniaiion anatomy a joint . t h e 

joining or juncture of the bones. This is 
of three kinds: (1) Diarthrosis, or a 
movable connection, such as the ball-and 
socket joint; (2) Synarthrosis, immov¬ 
able connection, as by suture, or junction 
by serrated margins; (3) Symphysis, or 
union by means of another substance, by 
a cartilage, tendon, or ligament. 
Artillery (ar-til'e-ri), all sorts of 
3 great guns, cannon, or ord¬ 
nance, mortars, howitzers, machine-guns, 
etc., together with all the apparatus and 
stores thereto belonging, which are taken 
into the field, or used for besieging and 
defending fortified places. The improve 1 
ments and alterations in artillery and pro¬ 
jectiles have of late years been very great, 
the most important, besides the increase 
in size, being the general adoption of 
rifled ordnance, breech-loaders, and ma¬ 
chine-guns. See Cannon , and other arti¬ 
cles. 

The name artillery is also given to the 
land troops by w T hom these arms are 
served, whether they accompany an army 
in the field, take part in sieges, or occupy 
fixed posts. The larger guns, of the 
breech-loading pattern, are 14, 13, 12, 10 
and 8-inch sizes—The name Park of Ar¬ 
tillery is given to the entire train of artil¬ 
lery accompanying a military force, with 
the apparatus, ammunition, etc., as well 
as the battalion appointed for its service 
and defense. 

Artillery Company, 

est existing body of volunteers in Great 
Britain, instituted in 1585; revived in 
1610. It comprises six companies of in¬ 
fantry, besides artillery, grenadiers, light 
infantry, and yagers, and furnishes a 
guard of honor to the sovereign when visit¬ 
ing London.— The Ancient and Honor¬ 
able Artillery Company of Boston, 
Mass., copied from that of London, was 
formed in 1637; was the first regularly 
organized military company in America. 

Artiodactyla (ar-ti-6-dak'ti-la; Gr. 

^ artios , even numbered, 
daktylos, a finger or toe), a section of the 
Ungulata or hoofed mammals, comprising 
all those in which the number of the toes 



Artocarpaceae 


Aruspices 


is even (two or four), including the 
ruminants, such as the ox, sheep, deer, 
etc., and also a number of non-ruminating 
animals, as the hippopotamus and the 
pig- 

Artocarpaceae „f 

plants, the bread-fruit order by some bot¬ 
anists ranked as a sub-order of the Urti- 
caceae or nettles. They are trees or 
shrubs, with a milky juice, which in 
some species hardens into caoutchouc, 
and in the cow-tree (Brosimum Galacto- 
dcndron) is a milk said to be as good 
as that of the cow. Many of the plants 
produce an edible fruit, of which the best 
known is the bread-fruit (Artocarpus). 
Avfftjc (ar-twa), a former province of 
xxx tu o France, anciently one of the 
seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, 
now almost completely included in the 
department of Pas de Calais. 

A r fo the name given to certain 

xxi to, branches of study in the middle 
ages, originally called the ‘ liberal arts ’ 
to distinguish them from the ‘ servile 
arts ’ or mechanical occupations. These 
arts were usually given as grammar, dia¬ 
lectics, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geom¬ 
etry, and astronomy. Hence originated 
the terms ‘ art classes, ’ ‘ degrees in 

arts,’ ‘ Master of Arts, ’ etc., still in 
common use in universities, the faculty 
of arts being distinguished from those of 
divinity, law, medicine, or science. 
Artvin (art-ven'), a Russian town, in 
xxit/Vixi ^ (j aucasus> a bout 35 m. in¬ 
land from Batoum. Pop. 7850. 

Aruba (a-ro'ba), an island off the 
xxxu.ua nort b coast of Venezuela, be¬ 
longing to Holland (a dependency of 
Curagoa), about 30 m. long and 7 broad; 
surface generally rock, quartz being 
abundant, and containing considerable 
quantities of gold; a phosphate which is 
exported for manure is also abundant. 
The climate is healthy. Pop. 9349. 

Aru Islands. See Arru Islands. 

Amm ( a ’ rum )> a genus of plants, nat. 

order Aracese. A. maculdtum 
(the common wakerobin, or lords-and- 
ladies) is abundant in woods and hedges 
in England and Ireland. It has acrid 
properties, but its corm yields a starch, 
which is known by the name of Portland 
sago or arrow-root. The dragon-root, or 
jack-in-the-pulpit, inhabitant of wet wood¬ 
lands, is common in United States; fruit, 
a bunch of bright scarlet berries. 

A run dpi (ar'un-del), a town in Sus- 
xxi ui uc sex , j£ n gi an( j ? on the river 

Arun, 4 miles from its mouth, the river 
being navigable to the town for vessels of 
250 tons. The castle of Arundel, the 


chief residence of the Dukes of Norfolk, 
stands on a knoll on the northeastern side 
of the town. Pop. 2842. 



Cuckoo-pint or Wake-robin (Arum macula- 
turn ).— a, Spadix. 6 b , Stamens or male flowers, 
cc, Ovaries or female flowers, d. Spathe or 
sheath, e, Corm. 


Av'nnrlpl Thomas, third son of Rich- 
xxi unuei, ard Fitz _ Alan? Earl of 

Arundel, born 1352, died 1413. He was 
chancellor of England and Archbishop of 
Canterbury. He concerted with Boling- 
broke to deliver the nation from the op¬ 
pression of Richard II, and was a bitter 
persecutor of the Lollards and followers 
of Wickliffe. 

Arundelian Marbles, a se V ies °l 

‘ ancient 
sculptured marbles discovered by William 
Petty, who explored the ruins of Greece 
at the expense of and for Thomas Howard, 
Earl of Arundel, who lived in the time of 
James I and Charles I and was a liberal 
patron of scholarship and art. After the 
Restoration they were presented by the 
grandson of the collector to the University 
of Oxford. Among them is the Parian 
Chronicle, a chronological account of the 
principal events in Grecian and particu¬ 
larly in Athenian history during a pe¬ 
riod of 1318 years, from the reign of 
Cecrops (b.c. 1450) to the archonship 
of Diognetus (b.c. 264). 

Arundo ( ar * un ' d <>), a genus of 
grasses now usually limited 
to the A. Donax and the species which 
most nearty agree with it, commonly 
called reeds. A. Donax is a native of 
the south of Europe, Egypt, and the 
East. It is one of the largest grasses in 
cultivation, and attains a height of 9 or 
10 feet, or even more. Its canes or 
stems are used for fishing-rods, etc. 
Anmrnrf^ (a-rus'pi-sez), Haruspi- 
ces, a class of priests in 
ancient Rome, of Etrurian origin, whose 
business was to inspect the entrails of 
victims killed in sacrifice, and by them to 
foretell future events. 



Aruwimi 


Asbestos 


Arnwimi (ar-u-weme), a large river 
niUWimi of equatorial Africa, a trib¬ 
utary of the Congo, which it enters 
from the north. It was first explored by 
Stanley, during his famous forest jour¬ 
ney. 

Arval Brothers ( Frat ^ es ±r vales), 

a college or com¬ 
pany of twelve members elected for life 
from the highest ranks in ancient Rome, 
so called from offering annually public 
sacrifices for the fertility of the fields (L. 
arvum, a field). 

Arve ( arv )> a r ^ ver rising in the 
Savoyan Alps, passes through the 
valley of Chamouni, and falls into the 
Rhone near Geneva, after a course of 
about 50 miles. 

Arvicola (ar-vik'o-la), a genus of 

xxiviuuict rodent anima is t sub-order 
Muridse or Mice. A. amphibia is the 
water-vole (or water-rat), and A. agres- 
tis is the field-vole or short-tailed field- 
mouse. 

Arvan (ar'yan, ar'i-an), or Indo-Eu- 
ropean Family of Languages. 
See Indo-European Family. 

A « a Roman weight of 12 ounces, an- 
swering to the libra or pound, and 
equal to 4245 5-7 
grains, Troy and 
avoirdupois. (In 
the most ancient 
times of Rome the 
copper or bronze 
coin which was 
called as actually 
weighed an as, or 
a pound, but in 
264 b.c. it was re¬ 
duced to 2 oz., in a 

917 1 A7 nnr i As (half real size).— Speci- 

to 191 to i oz.) men in British Museum. 

Asa ( a * sa )’ great grandson of Solomon 
and third king of Judah; he as¬ 
cended the throne at an early age, and 
distinguished himself by his zeal in root¬ 
ing out idolatry with its attendant im¬ 
moralities. He died after a prosperous 
reign of forty-one years. 

Asafetida, Asai :™” a , Os-a-fet'i-da 
7 as-a-fe'ti-da), a fetid 
inspissated sap from Central Asia, 
the solidified juice of the Narthex Asa- 
fcetida, a large umbelliferous plant. It is 
used in medicine as an antispasmodic, 
and in cases of flatulency, in hysteric 
paroxysms, and other nervous affections. 
Notwithstanding its very disagreeable 
odor it is used as a seasoning in the 
East, and sometimes in Europe. An 
inferior sort is the product of certain 
species of Ferula. 

Asagraea ^ a ^ a * grg ' a )- See 8aba- 



(a-sa'ma), an active volcano 
* of Japan, about 50 miles north¬ 
west of Tokio, 8260 feet high. 

Asar)h ( a,sa f)> a Devite and psalmist 
appointed by David as leading 
chorister in the divine services. His office 
became hereditary in his family, or he 
founded a school of poets and musicians, 
which were called, after him, * the sons 
of Asaph.’ 


AcQ-nli St., a small cathedral city and 
* 7 bishop’s see in Wales. 15 miles 

N. w. of Flint; founded about 550 by St. 
Iventigern or St. Mungo, Bishop of 
Glasgow, and named after his disciple St. 
Asaph, from whom both the diocese and 
town took their name. The cathedral was 
built about the close of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury ; it consists of a choir, a nave, two 
aisles, and a transept. Pop. 6170. 

Asarabacca (a-sa-ra-tak'a), a small 

hardy European plant, 
nat. order Aristolochiaceae ( Asdrum Euro- 
pceum ). Its leaves are acrid, bitter, and 
nauseous, and its root is extremely acrid. 
Both the leaves and root were formerly 
used as an emetic. The species A. Cana- 
dense, the Canada snake-root, is found 
in the Western States. 


As'aruin. See Asarabacca. 


Ac'hpn Air, or A'hib, a kingdom of 
7 Africa, in the Sahara, between 
lat. 16° 15' and 20° 15' n., and Ion. 6° 
15' and 9° 30' e. It consists of a suc¬ 
cession of mountain groups and valleys, 
with a generally western slope, and at¬ 
tains in its highest summits a height of 
over 5000 feet. The valleys, though 
separated by complete deserts, are very 
fertile, and often of picturesque appear¬ 
ance. The inhabitants are Tuaregs or 
Berbers, with an admixture of negro 
blood. They live partly in villages, partly 
as nomads. It is nominally ruled over 
by a sultan, who resides in the capital, 
Agades. 

A«iTiP<itn«i (as-bes'tus), a remarkable 

i isoebiub and highly useful mineral) a 

fibrous variety of several members of the 
hornblende family, composed of separable 
filaments with a silky luster. The fibers 
are sometimes delicate, flexible, and elas¬ 
tic ; at other times stiff and brittle. It 
is incombustible, and anciently was 
wrought into a soft, flexible cloth, which 
was used as a shroud for dead bodies. 
In modern times it has been manufac¬ 
tured into incombustible cloth, gloves, 
felt, paper, etc., is employed in gas-stoves; 
is much used as a covering to steam 
boilers and pipes; is mixed with metallic 
pigments, and used as a paint on wooden 
structures, roofs, partitions, etc., to render 
them fireproof, and is employed in various 



Asbjornsen 


Ascidia 


other ways, the manufacture having re¬ 
cently greatly developed. Some varieties 
are compact and take a fine polish, others 
are loose, like flax or silky wool. Ligni- 
form asbestos, or mountain-wood, is a 
variety presenting an irregular filament¬ 
ous structure, like wood. Rock-cork, 
mountain-leather, fossil-paper, and fossil- 
flax are varieties. Asbestos is found in 
many parts of the world, chiefly in con¬ 
nection with serpentine. Canada has long 
been an important producing field and 
has supplied the United States until re¬ 
cently, but much is now being obtained 
from Vermont and Georgia. 

Asbiornsen (as'byeurn-sen), Peter 
xxsuju acn Kristen, born in 1812, 

died in 1885, a distinguished Norwegian 
naturalist and collector of the popular 
tales and legends, fairy stories, etc., of 
his native country. 

AsblirV ( az 'ber-i) Park, a small town 
J on the coast of New Jersey, 
a great summer resort, handsomely built, 
with wide, well-arranged streets. Pop. 
10,150. 

Aceolmi (as'ka-lon; anciently Ash'- 
xx^ciiun kelon ), a ruined town of 
Palestine, on the sea-coast, 40 miles 
w. s. w. of Jerusalem. It was occupied by 
the Crusaders under Richard I after a 
great battle with Saladin (1192). 
AcpaYiinQ (&s-ka'ni-us), the son of 

Ascamus ^ neas and Creusaj and the 

companion of his father in his wander¬ 
ings from Troy to Italy. 

AcnQvie (as'ka-ris), a genus of in¬ 
testinal worms. See Nematel- 

mia. 

A^rpiminn (a-sen'shun ; discovered 

Ascension on Ascension Day)> an 

island of volcanic origin belonging to 
Britain, near the middle of the South At¬ 
lantic Ocean, 800 miles northwest of St. 
Helena ; area, about 36 square miles; pop. 
about 400. It is retained by Britain 
mainly as a station at which ships may 
touch for stores. It is celebrated for its 
turtle, which are the finest in the world. 
Wild goats are plentiful, and oxen, sheep, 
pheasants, Guinea fowl, and rabbits have 
been introduced and thrive well. George¬ 
town, the seat of government, stands on 
the west side of the island, which is 
governed under the admiralty by a naval 
officer. 

A ceevicmvi Right, of a star, in as- 
Ascension, tronomy the arc of the 

equator intercepted between the first 
point of Aries and that point of the equa¬ 
tor which comes to the meridian at the 
same instant with the star. 

A seen si on Dav the da ^ on which 
Abceiibiun ua,y, the ascension of the 

Saviour is commemorated, often called 


Holy Thursday: a movable feast, always 
falling on the Thursday but one before 
Whitsuntide. 

Ascetics ( a * set ' iks )> a name given in 
ancient times to those Chris¬ 
tians who devoted themselves to severe 
exercises of piety and strove to distin¬ 
guish themselves from the world by ab¬ 
stinence from sensual enjoyments and by 
voluntary penances. Ascetics and asceti¬ 
cism have played an important part in the 
Christian church, but the principle of 
striving after a higher and more spiritual 
life by subduing the animal appetites 
and passions has no necessary connection 
with Christianity. Thus there were 
ascetics among the Jews previous to 
Christ, and asceticism was inculcated by 
the Stoics, while in its most extreme 
form it may still be seen among the 
Brahmans and Buddhists. Monasticism 
was but one phase of asceticism. 

Ascii ( as b)> a town of Austria-Hun¬ 
gary, in the extreme northwest¬ 
ern corner of Bohemia, with manufactures 
of cotton, woolen, and silk goods, bleach- 
fields, dye-works, etc. Pop. 18,700. 
Aschaffenburg ( a -shaf'en-borfc), a 

& town of Bavaria, on 
the Main and Aschaff, 25 miles e. s. e. 
of Frankfort. The chief edifice is the 
castle of Johannisberg, built in 1605-14, 
and for centuries the summer residence of 
the elector. There are manufactures of 
colored paper, tobacco, liquors, etc. Pop. 
(1905) 25,275. 

A«pTi£irn (as'kam), Roger, a learned 

nziuiLdUL Englishman> born in 1515 of 

a respectable family in Yorkshire, died 
1568. He was entered at Cambridge, 
1530, and was chosen fellow in 1534 and 
tutor in 1537. He became Latin secretary 
to Edward VI and also to Mary. Was 
preceptor to Elizabeth during her girl¬ 
hood and her secretary after she ascended 
the throne. In 1544 he wrote his Toxoph- 
ilus, or Schole of Shooting, in praise of 
his favorite amusement and exercise— 
archery. In 1563-68 he wrote his School¬ 
master, a treatise on the best method of 
teaching children Latin. Some of his 
writings, including many letters, were 
in Latin. He wrote the best English style 
of his time. His life was written by Dr. 
Johnson to accompany an edition of his 
works published in 1769. 

Aschersleben (&sh'erz-ia-ben), a 

town of Prussian 
Saxony, in the district of Magdeburg, 
near the junction of the Eine with the 
Wipper. Industries: woolens, machinery 
and metal goods, sugar, paper, etc. Pop. 
(1905) 27,876. 

Ascidia ( a ; s i d 'i' a ; Greek, askos, a 
wine-skin), the name given to 




Asclepiadaceae 


Asgard 


the * sea-squirts ’ or main section of the 
Tunicata, molluscous animals of low 
grade, resembling a double-necked bottle, 
of a leathery or gristly nature, found at 



Ascidians. 


1, Perophora: a , mouth; b, vent; c, intestinal 
canal; d , stomach; e, common tubular stem. 
2, Ascidia echinata. 8, Ascidia virginea. 4, Cyn¬ 
thia quadrangularis. 5, Botryllus violaceus. 


low-water mark on the sea-beach, and 
dredged from the deep water attached to 
stones, shells, and fixed objects. One of 
the prominent openings admits the food 
and the water required in respiration; the 
other is the excretory aperture. A single 
ganglion represents the nervous system, 
placed between the two apertures. Male 
and female reproductive organs exist in 
each ascidian. They pass through pe¬ 
culiar phases of development, the young 
ascidian appearing like a tadpole-body. 
They may be single or simple, social or 
compound. In social ascidians the pe¬ 
duncles of a number of individuals are 
united into a common tubular stem, with 
a partial common circulation of blood. 
In these animals evolutionists see a link 
between the Mollusca and the Vertebrata. 


Asclepiadaceae » d G f c g ^>: 

petalous exogenous plants, the distinguish¬ 
ing characteristic of which is that the 
anthers adhere to the five stigmatic proc¬ 
esses, the whole sexual apparatus form¬ 
ing a single mass. The members of this 
order are shrubs, or sometimes herbaceous 
plants, occasionally climbing, almost al¬ 
ways with a milky juice. Many of them 
are employed as purgatives, .diaphoretics, 
tonics, and febrifuges, and others as arti¬ 
cles of food. Asclepias is the typical 
genus. See Asclepias, Calotropis, Stape- 
lia, Stephanotis. 


Asclepiades (as-kle-pi'a-des), the name 
r of a number of ancient 

Greek writers—poets, grammarians, etc., 
—of whom little is known, and also of 


several ancient physicians, the most 
celebrated of whom was Asclepiades, of 
Bithynia, who acquired considerable re¬ 
pute at Rome about the beginning of the 
first century b. c. 

Asclepias (as-kle'pi-as), or Swal- 
R low-wort, a genus of 
plants, the type and the largest genus of 
the nat. order Asclepiadaceae. Most of 
the species are North American herbs, 
having opposite, alternate, or verticillate 
leaves. Many of them possess powerful 
medicinal qualities. A. decumbens is 
diaphoretic and sudorific, and has the 
singular property of exciting general per¬ 
spiration without increasing in any sensi¬ 
ble degree the heat of the body; A. curas- 
savica is emetic, and its roots are fre¬ 
quently sold as ipecacuanha. The roots 
of A. tuberosa are famed for diapho¬ 
retic properties. Many other species are 
also used as medicines, and several are 
cultivated for the beauty of their flowers. 
Acpnli (as'ko-li), or Ascoli Piceno 
(anc. Asculum), a town in 
Middle Italy, capital of the province of 
the same name, on the Tronto, 14 milos 
above its embouchure in the Adriatic. 
It has old bridges, walls, and gates, a fine 
cathedral, etc. Pop. 12,583.—The prov¬ 
ince has an area of 809 sq. miles; a pop. 
of 243,883. 

As'coli Satriano (an( \ 7 

A p u i u m) , a 
town of S. Italy, prov. Foggia. Here 
Pyrrhus defeated the Romans" in 279 B.c. 
Pop. 8550. 

Ascomycetes (as-kom-i-se'tes), a 

J large group of fungi, 

so called from their spores being contained 
in asci or sacs. 

Asconius (as-ko'ni-us; Quintus A. 

Pedianus), a Roman 
writer of the first century after Christ, 
who wrote a life of Sallust, a reply to 
the detractors of Virgil, and commenta¬ 
ries to Cicero’s orations, some of which 
are extant. 


As'cot an race-course adjacent 

9 to the s. w. extremity of the 
great park of Windsor. The races, which 
take place in the second week in June, 
constitute, for value of stakes and quality 
of horses, the best meeting of the year, as 
it is the most fashionable. 

As'srard (lit. gods’ yard, or abode), in 
° Scandinavian mythology the 

i? me !r.°f g0( ^ s or rising like 

the Greek Olympus, from midgard, or 
the middle world, that is, the earth. It 
was here that Odin and the rest of the 
gods, the twelve /Esir, dwelt—the gods 
in the mansion called Gladsheim, the god¬ 
desses dwelling in Vingulf. Walhalla, in 
which heroes slain in battle dwelt, was 




Asgill 


Ashburton 


also here. Below the boughs of the ash- 
tree Yggdrasill the gods assembled every 
day in council. 

Asm 11 (as'gil), John, an eccentric Eng- 
o A list writer, a lawyer by pro¬ 
fession ; born 1659; died 1738. In 1G99 
he published a pamphlet to prove that 
Christians were not necessarily liable to 
death, death being the penalty imposed 
for Adam’s sin and Christ having satis¬ 
fied the law. Having crossed over to 
Ireland, he was beginning to get into a 
good practice, and was elected to the 
Irish House of Commons, when his 
pamphlet was ordered to be burned by 
the public hangman, and_ he himself was 
expelled from the house. His whole subse¬ 
quent life was passed in pecuniary and 
other troubles, mainly in the Fleet or 
within the rules of the King’s Bench. 
A S li ( Fraxlnus ), a genus of deciduous 
trees belonging to the nat. order 
Oleacese, having imperfect flowers and a 
seed-vessel prolonged into a thin wing 
at the apex (called a samara). There 
are a good many species, chiefly indig¬ 
enous to Europe and North America. 
The common ash ( F . excelsior), indige¬ 
nous to Britain, has a smooth bark, 
and grows tall and rather slender. It is 
one of the most useful of British trees 
on account of the excellence of its hard, 
tough wood and the rapidity of its 
growth. There are many varieties of 
it, as the weeping-ash, the curled-leaved 
ash, the entire-leaved ash, etc. The 
flowering or manna ash ( F . Ornus), by 
some placed in a distinct genus (Ornus), 
is a native of the south of Europe and 
Palestine. It yields the substance called 
manna, which is obtained by making in¬ 
cisions in the bark, when the juice 
exudes and hardens. Among American 
species are the white ash (F. Americana), 
with lighter bark and leaves; the red or 
black ash ( F . pubescens), with a brown 
bark; the black ash (F. samlucifolia ), 
the blue ash, the green ash, etc. They 
are all valuable trees. The mountain- 
ash or rowan belongs to a different 
order. 

Ashes, the incombustible residue 

of organic bodies (animal or 
vegetable) remaining after _ combustion ; 
in common usage, any incombustible 
residue of bodies used as fuel; as a com¬ 
mercial term, the word generally means 
the ashes of vegetable substances, from 
which are extracted the alkaline matters 
called potash, pearl-ash, kelp, barilla, etc. 
A oTiancrn (ash-an'go), a region in the 
.flbllctngv interior 0 f Southern Africa, 

in French Congo, partly mountainous, 
partly in the basin of the Ogowai River. 
The inhabitants belong to the Bantu 


stock, and among them are a dwarfish 
people, the Obongo, a branch of the 
African Pygmies. 

Ashantee ( « sh ; an ' t ! ) -’ a kingdom of 

West Africa, m the in¬ 
terior of the Gold Coast, and to the 
north of the river Prah, with an area of 
about 70,000 sq. miles. It is in great 
part hilly, well watered, and covered 
with dense tropical vegetation. The 
country round the towns, however, is 
carefully cultivated. The crops are 
chiefly rice, maize, millet, sugar-cane, and 
yams, the last forming the staple vege¬ 
table food of the natives. The domestic 
animals are cows, horses of small size, 
goats and a species of hairy sheep. The 
larger wild animals are the elephant, 
rhinoceros, giraffe, buffalo, lion, hippo¬ 
potamus, etc. Birds of all kinds are 
numerous, and crocodiles and other rep¬ 
tiles abound. Gold is abundant, being 
found either in the form of dust or in 
nuggets. The Ashantees, formerly war¬ 
like and ferocious, with a love of shed¬ 
ding human blood and of making human 
sacrifices, are now seemingly of peaceful 
disposition. They make excellent cotton 
cloths, articles in gold, and good earthen¬ 
ware, tan leather, and make sword- 
blades of superior workmanship. The 
chief town is Coomassie, which, before 
being burned down in 1874, was well and 
regularly built with wide streets, and 
had from 70,000 to 100,000 inhabit¬ 
ants. The British first came in contact 
with the Ashantees in 1807, and hos¬ 
tilities continued off and on till 1826, 
when the natives were driven from the 
sea-coast. Immediately after the transfer 
of the Dutch settlements on the Gold 
Coast to Britain in 1872—when the en¬ 
tire coast remained in British hands— 
the Ashantees reclaimed the sovereignty 
of the tribes round the settlement of El¬ 
mira. This brought on a sanguinary 
war, leading to a British expedition in 
1874, in which Coomassie was captured, 
and British supremacy established along 
the Gold Coast. Ashantee was made a 
British protectorate in 1896 and annexed 
to Great Britain in 1901. Pop. vaguely 
estimated at from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000. 
AckWre (ash'burn), a town of 
ASnDOine England) in Derbyshire, 

12 miles n. w. of Derby, with manufac¬ 
tures of cottons and lace. Pop. 4059. 

AciTlhlirton (ash'bur-ton), a town 
iibnUUIlUII . n Devonshire> Eng i and> 

16 m. s. w. of Exeter, a parliamentary 
borough till 1868, and still giving name 
to a parliament division. Pop. about 
2494. 

A cli'>111 rtnn Alexander Baring, 

iisn Durxon, Lokd> a British states . 



Ashburton Treaty 


Ash-Wednesday 


man and financier, born 1774; died 1864. 
A younger son of Sir Francis Baring, he 
was bred to commercial pursuits, and 
in 1810 he became head of the great firm 
of Baring Brothers & Co. After serving 
in Parliament for many years and being 
a member of Peel’s government (1834- 
35), he was raised to the peerage in 
1835. See next article. 

Ash'burton Treaty, co a n ; 

Washington, 1842, by Alexander Baring, 
Lord Ashburton, and the President of the 
United States; it defined the boundaries 
between the States and Canada, etc. 

Ashby-de-la-Zouch ( ^hV d e 1 a a 

town in Leicestershire, England, on the 
borders of Derbyshire, with manufactures 
of hosiery, leather, etc. Pop. 4927. 
AcTirlnH (ash'dod), a place on the 
coast of Palestine, formerly 
one of the chief cities of the Philistines, 
now an insignificant village. 

AqIiptHUa (ash'vil), a thriving moun- 
nuncvmc tain town in North Caro _ 

lina, capital of Buncombe county, 210 
miles west of Raleigh, has cotton and 
other manufactures, and is a favorite 
summer and winter resort, its climate 
being very beneficial for pulmonary 
diseases. Pop. 18,762, 

Ashera ( a -she'ra), an ancient Semitic 
goddess, whose symbol was 
the phallus. In the Revised Version of 
the Old Testament this word is used to 
translate what in the ordinary version 
is translated ‘ grove,’ as connected with 
the idolatrous practices into which the 
Jews were prone to fall. 

Ash'es. See Ash. 

A till'ford a thriving town of Eng- 
9 land, in Kent, situated near 
the confluence of the upper branches of 
the river Stour, with large locomotive 
and railway-carriage works. It gives 
name to a parliamentary division of the 
county. Pop. 13,670. 

Ashland a cit y of B °y d Co -> Ken_ 

UMilcUlU, tucky> on the Qhio R . ver> 

146 miles above Cincinnati; is in a rich 
mineral and lumber region, and has iron 
and steel works, etc., and important ship¬ 
ping interests. Pop. 8688. 

Ashland, * Of Ohio capital of 
9 Ashland Co., oO miles 
w. s. w. of Akron. Its manufactures in¬ 
clude agricultural implements, medicines, 
poultry food and pumps. Pop. 6795. 

Ashland, % ci tY’ ca P ita l of Jackson 
c T _ , Co., Oregon, 16 miles s', e. 

of Jacksonville. It is located in a rich 
fruit-growing region, and has flour and 
woolen mills, etc. Pop. 5020. 


A cli r l a nil a town of Schuylkill Co., 
A 11 in the anthracite region of 

Pennsylvania, 12 miles n. w. of Potts- 
ville, and engaged in mining and iron 
manufacture. Pop. 6855. 

Ashland, % city, capital of Ashland 
1 Co., Wisconsin, on Lake 
Superior. It has extensive iron and 
steel works, saw and planing mills, etc., 
and ships iron ore and lumber. Pop. 
11,594. 

AcTiIpv Lord. See Shaftesbury, First 
y 9 Earl of. 

Aolimnip (ash'mol), Elias, an Eng- 
Hbllinuie lish antiquary, born 1617; 
died 1692. He became a chancery solici¬ 
tor in London, but afterwards studied at 
Oxford, taking up mathematics, physics, 
chemistry, and particularly astrology. 
He published Theatrum Chymicum in 
1652. On the Restoration he received 
the post of Windsor herald and other 
appointments both honorable and lucra¬ 
tive. In 1672 appeared his History of 
the Order of the Garter. He presented 
to the University of Oxford his collection 
of rarities, to which he afterwards 
added his books and MSS., thereby com¬ 
mencing the Ashmolean Museum. 

Ashtabula “ohlc'f si 

miles northeast of Cleveland; contains 
various manufactories, including shaft 
factories, machine shops, tool and stove 
works, etc. Pop. 18,266. 

Ashtaroth (ash'ta-r5th), a goddess 
worshiped by the an¬ 
cient Canaanites, and regarded as sym¬ 
bolizing the productive powers of nature, 
being probably the same as Astarte 
(which see). Ashtaroth is a plural 
form, the singular being Ashtoreth. 

Ashton-in-Makerfield, a town of 

1 L a n c a- 

shire, England, 4 miles from Wigan, with 
collieries, cotton mills, etc. Pop. 21,540. 

Ashton-under-Lyme, a municipal 

’ and parlia¬ 
mentary borough of Lancashire, Eng¬ 
land, 6 miles e. of Manchester, on the 
north bank of the river Tame, a well-built 
place, with handsome streets and public 
buildings. The chief employment is cot¬ 
ton manufacture, but there are also 
collieries and iron-works, which employ 
many persons. Pop 45,179. 

Ash-Wednesdav, the first day of 
J9 Lent, so called 
from a custom in the Western Church 
of sprinkling ashes that day on the 
heads of penitents, then admitted to 
penance. The period at which the fast 
of Ash-Wednesda.v was instituted is un¬ 
certain. In the Roman Catholic Church 
the ashes are now strewn on the heads 



Asia 


Asia 


of all the clergy and people present. In 
the Anglican Church Ash-Wednesday is 
regarded as an important fast day. 

Asia the largest of the great 

a divisions of the earth; length, 
from the extreme southwestern point of 
Arabia, at the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, 
to the extreme northeastern point of 
Siberia—East Cape, or Cape Vostochni 
in Bering Strait—6900 miles; breadth, 
from Cape Chelyuskin, in Northern 
Siberia, to Cape Romania, the southern 
extremity of the Malay Peninsula, 5300 
miles; area estimated at about 16,000,- 
000 (including the islands 17,000,000), 
square miles, about a third of all the 
land of the earth’s surface. On three 
sides, N., E., and s., the ocean forms its 
natural boundary, while in the w. the 
frontier is marked mainly by the Ural 
Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian 
Sea, the Caucasus, the Black Sea. the 
Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, and the 
Red Sea. There is no proper separation 
between Asia and Europe, the latter 
being really a great peninsula of the 
former. Asia, though not so irregular in 
shape as Europe, is broken in the s. by 
three great peninsulas, Arabia, Hin¬ 
dustan, and Indo-China, while the east 
coast presents peninsular projections and 
islands, forming a series of sheltered 
seas and bays, the principal peninsulas 
being Kamchatka and Corea. The prin¬ 
cipal islands are those forming the 
Malay or Asiatic Archipelago, which 
stretch round in a wide curve on the 
s. E. of the continent. Besides the larger 
islands—Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Cele¬ 
bes, Mindanao, and Luzon (in the Philip¬ 
pine group)—there are countless smaller 
islands grouped round these. Other 
islands are Ceylon, in the s. of India; 
the Japanese islands and Sakhalin on 
the east of the continent; Formosa, s. E. 
of China ; Cyprus s. of Asia Minor; and 
New Siberia and Wrangell Land, in the 
Arctic Ocean. 

The mountain systems of Asia are of 
great extent, and their culminating 
points are the highest in the world. 
The greatest of all is the Himalayan 
system, which lies mainly between Ion. 
70° and 100° e. and lat. 28° and 37° N. 
It extends, roughly speaking, from north¬ 
west to southeast, its total length being 
about 1500 miles, forming the northern 
barrier of Hindustan. The loftiest sum¬ 
mits are Mount Everest, 29,002 feet 
high, another peak 28,265, and Kan- 
chinjinga, 28,156. The principal passes, 
which rise to the height of 18,000 to 
20,000 feet, are the highest in the world. 
A second great mountain system of Cen¬ 
tral Asia, connected with the northwest¬ 


ern extremity of the Himalayan system 
by the elevated region of Pamir (about 
Ion. 70°-75° e., lat. 37°-40° n.), is the 
Thian-Shan system, which runs north¬ 
eastward for a distance of 1200 miles. 
In this direction the Altai, Sayan, and 
other ranges continue the line of eleva¬ 
tion to the northeastern coast. A 
northwestern continuation of the Hima¬ 
layas is the Hindu Kush, and farther 
westward a connection may be traced 
between the Himalayan mass and the 
Elburz range (18.460 ft.), south of 
the Caspian, and thence to the moun¬ 
tains of Kurdistan, Armenia, and Asia 
Minor. 

There are vast plateaus and elevated 
valley regions connected with the great 
central mountain systems, but large por¬ 
tions of the continent are low and flat. 
Tibet forms the most elevated table¬ 
land in Asia, its mean height being es¬ 
timated at 15.000 feet. On its south 
is the Himalayan range, while the 
Kuen-Lun range forms its northern bar¬ 
rier. Another great but much lower 
plateau is that which comprises Af¬ 
ghanistan, Beluchistan, and Persia, and 
which to the northwest joins into the 
plateau of Asia Minor. The principal 
plain of Asia is that of Siberia, which 
extends along the north of the continent 
and forms an immense alluvial tract 
sloping to the Arctic Ocean. Vast 
swamps or peat-mosses called tundras 
cover large portions of this region. 
Southwest of Siberia, and stretching 
eastward from the Caspian, is a low- 
lying tract consisting to a great extent 
of steppes and deserts, and including in 
its area the Sea of Aral. In the east of 
China there is an alluvial plain of some 
200,000 square miles in extent; in Hin¬ 
dustan are plains extending for 2000 
miles along the south slope of the Hima¬ 
layas ; and between Arabia and Per¬ 
sia, watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, 
is the plain of Mesopotamia or Assyria, 
formerly one of the most productive in 
the world. Of the deserts of Asia, the 
largest is that of Gobi (Ion. 90°-120° e., 
lat. 40°-48° n.), large portions of which 
are covered with nothing but sand or 
display surface of bare. rock. An almost 
continuous desert region may also be 
traced from the desert of North Africa 
through Arabia (which is largely occu¬ 
pied by bare deserts), Persia, and Belu¬ 
chistan to the Indus. 

Some of the largest rivers of Asia 
flow northward to the Arctic Ocean—the 
Obi, the Yenisei, and the Lena. The 
Hoang-Ho, the Yang-tse, and the Amoor, 
are the chief of those which flow 
into the Pacific. The Ganges, Brahma- 



Asia 


Asia 


putra, Irawaddy, and Indus, and others 
of some magnitude empty into the Indian 
Ocean. The Persian Gulf receives the 
united waters of the Euphrates and the 
Tigris. There are several systems, of 
inland drainage, large rivers falling into 
lakes which have no outlets. 

The largest lake of Asia (partly also 
European) is the Caspian Sea, which 
receives the Kur from the Caucasus 
(with its tributary the Aras from Ar¬ 
menia), and the Sefid Rud and other 
streams from Persia (besides the Volga 
from European Russia, and the Ural, 
which is partly European, partly Asi¬ 
atic). The Caspian lies in the center of a 
great depression, being 83 feet below the 
level of the Sea of Azof. East from the 
Caspian is the Sea of Aral, which, like 
the Caspian, has no outlet, and is fed 
by the rivers Amoo Daria (Oxus) and 
Syr Daria. Still farther east, to the 
north of the Thian-Shan Mountains, and 
fed bv the Hi and other streams, is Lake 
Balkash, also without an outlet and very 
salt. Other lakes having no communi¬ 
cation with the ocean are Lob Nor, in 
the desert of Gobi, receiving the river 
Tarim, and the Dead Sea, far below the 
level of the Mediterranean, and fed by 
the Jordan. The chief fresh-water lake 
is Lake Baikal, in the south of Siberia, 
between Ion. 104° and 110° E., a moun¬ 
tain lake from which the Yenisei draws 
a portion of its waters. 

Geologically speaking large areas of 
Asia are of comparatively recent date, 
the lowlands of Siberia, for instance, 
having been submerged during the ter¬ 
tiary period, if not more recently. Many 
geologists believe that subsequently to 
the glacial period there was a great sea 
in Western Asia, of which the Caspian 
and Aral Seas are the remains. The 
desiccation of Central Asia is still going 
on, as is also probably the upheaval of a 
great part of the continent. The great 
mountain chains and elevated plateaus 
are of ancient origin, however, and in 
them granite and other crystalline rocks 
are largely represented. Active vol¬ 
canoes are only met with in the extreme 
east (Kamchatka) and in the Eastern 
Archipelago. From the remotest times 
Asia has been celebrated for its mineral 
wealth. In the Altai and Ural Moun¬ 
tains gold, iron, lead, and platinum are 
found ; in India and other parts rubies, 
diamonds, and other gems are, or have 
been, procured; salt in Central Asia; 
coal in China, India, Central Asia, etc.; 
petroleum in the districts about the 
Caspian and in Burmah; bitumen in 
Syria; while silver, copper, sulphur, etc., 
are found in various parts. 


Every variety of climate may be ex¬ 
perienced in Asia, but as a whole it is 
marked by extremes of heat and cold 
and by great dryness, this in particular 
being the case with vast regions in the 
center of the continent and distant from 
the sea. The great lowland region of 
Siberia has a short but hot summer, and 
a long but intensely cold winter, the 
rivers and their estuaries being fast 
bound with ice, and at a certain depth 
the soil is hard frozen all the year 
round. The northern part of China to 
the east of Central Asia has a temperate 
climate with a warm summer, and in the 
extreme north a severe winter. The dis¬ 
tricts lying to the south of the central 
region, comprising the Indian and Indo- 
Chinese peninsulas. Southern China, 
and the adjacent islands, present the 
characteristic climate and vegetation, of 
the southern temperate and tropical 
regions modified by the effects of altitude. 
Some localities in Southeastern Asia 
have the heaviest rainfall anywhere 
known. As the equator is approached 
the extremes of temperature diminish 
till at the southern extremity of the con¬ 
tinent they are such as may be ex¬ 
perienced in any tropical country. 
Among climatic features are the mon¬ 
soons of the Indian Ocean and the east¬ 
ern seas, and the cyclones or typhoons, 
which are often very destructive. 

The plants and animals of Northern 
and Western Asia generally resemble 
those of similar latitudes in Europe 
(which is really a prolongation of the 
Asiatic continent), differing more in 
species than in genera. The principal 
mountain trees are the pine, larch, and 
birch ; the willow, alder, and poplar are 
found in lower grounds. In the central 
region European species reach as far as 
the Western and Central Himalayas, but 
are rare in the Eastern. They are here 
met by Chinese and Japanese forms. 
The lower slopes of the Himalayas are 
clothed almost exclusively with tropical 
forms. Higher up, between 4000 and 
10,000 feet, are found all the types of 
trees and plants that belong to the tem¬ 
perate zone, there being extensive forests 
of conifers. Here is the native home 
of the deodar cedar. The southeastern 
region, including India, the Eastern 
Peninsula, and China, with the islands, 
contains a great variety of plants useful 
to man and having here their original 
habitat, such as the sugar-cane, rice, 
cotton, and indigo; pepper, cinnamon, 
cassia, clove, nutmeg, and cardamoms; 
banana, cocoanut, areca and sago palms; 
the mango and many other fruits, with 




































































Asia 


Asia 


plants producing many drugs, also caout¬ 
chouc and gutta-percha. The forests of 
India and the Malay Peninsula contain 
oak, teak, sal, and other timber woods, 
besides bamboos, palms, sandal-wood, 
etc. The palmyra palm is characteristic 
of Southern India; while the talipot 
palm flourishes on the western coast of 
Hindustan, Ceylon, and the Malay Penin¬ 
sula. The cultivated plants of India 
and China include wheat, barley, rice, 
maize, millet, sorghum, tea, coffee, in¬ 
digo. cotton, jute, opium, tobacco, etc. 
In North China and the Japanese Is¬ 
lands large numbers of deciduous trees 
occur, such as oaks, maples, limes, wal¬ 
nuts, poplars and willows, the genera 
being European, but the individual 
species Asiatic. Among cultivated plants 
are wheat, and in favorable situations 
rice, cotton, the vine, etc. Coffee, rice, 
maize, etc., are extensively grown in 
some of the islands of the Asiatic Ar¬ 
chipelago. In Arabia and the warmer 
valleys of Persia, Afghanistan, and Belu- 
chistan aromatic shrubs are abundant. 
Over large parts of these regions the 
date-palm flourishes and affords a valu¬ 
able article of food. Gum-producing 
acacias are, with the date-palm, the com¬ 
monest trees in Arabia. African forms 
are found extending from the Sahara 
along the desert region of Asia. 

Nearly all the mammals of Europe 
occur in Northern Asia, with numerous 
additions to the species. Central Asia 
is the native land of the horse, the ass, 
the ox, the sheep, and the goat. Both 
varieties of the camel, the single and the 
double humped, are Asiatic. To the in¬ 
habitants of Tibet and the higher pla¬ 
teaus of the Himalayas the yak is what 
the reindeer is to the tribes of the Sibe¬ 
rian plain, almost their sole wealth and 
support. The elephant, of a different 
species from that of Africa, is a native 
of tropical Asia. The Asiatic lion, 
which inhabits Arabia, Persia, Asia 
Minor, Beluchistan, and some parts of 
India, is smaller than the African species. 
Bears are found in all parts, the white 
bear in the far north, and other species 
in the more temperate and tropical 
parts. The tiger is the most character¬ 
istic of the larger Asiatic carnivora. 
It extends from Armenia across the en¬ 
tire continent, being absent, however, 
from the greater portion of Siberia and 
from the high tableland of Tibet; it 
extends also into Sumatra, Java, and 
Bali. In Southeastern Asia and the 
islands we find the rhinoceros, buffalo, 
ox, deer, squirrels, porcupines, etc. In 
birds nearly every order is represented. 
Among the most interesting forms are 
18—1 


the hornbills, the peacock, the Impey 
pheasant, the tragopan or horned 
pheasant, and other gallinaceous birds, 
the pheasant family being very charac¬ 
teristic of Southeastern Asia. It was 
from Asia that the common domestic 
fowl, was introduced into Europe. The 
tropical parts of Asia abound in mon¬ 
keys, of which the species are numerous. 
Some are tailed, others, such as the 
orang, are tailless, but none have pre¬ 
hensile tails like the American monkeys. 
In. the Malay Archipelago marsupial 
animals, so characteristic of Australia, 
first occur in the Moluccas and Celebes, 
while various mammals common in the 
western part of the archipelago are ab¬ 
sent. A similar transition towards the 
Australian type takes place in the 
species of birds. Of marine mammals 
the dug.ong is peculiar to the Indian 
Ocean; in the Ganges is found a peculiar 
species of dolphin. At the head of the 
reptiles stands the Gangetic crocodile, 
frequenting the Ganges and other large 
rivers. Among the serpents are the cobra 
de capello, one of the most deadly snakes 
in existence; there are also large boas 
and pythons besides sea and fresh-water 
snakes. The seas and rivers produce 
a great variety of fish. The Salmonidse 
are found in the rivers flowing into the 
Arctic Ocean. Two rather remarkable 
fishes are the climbing perch and the 
archer-fish. The well-known goldfish is 
a native of China. 

Asia is mainly peopled by races belong¬ 
ing to two great ethnographic types, the 
Caucasic or fair type, and the Mongolic 
or yellow. To the former belong the 
Aryan or Indo-European, and the Semitic 
races, both of which mainly inhabit the 
southwest of the continent; to the latter 
belong the Malays and Indo-Chinese in 
the s. E., as well as the Mongolians 
proper (Chinese, etc.), occupying nearly 
all the rest of the continent. To these 
may be added certain races of doubtful 
affinities, as the Dravidians of Southern 
India, the Cingalese of Ceylon, the Ainos 
of Yesso, and some diminutive negro-like 
tribes called Negritos, which inhabit 
Malacca and the interior of several of thd 
islands of the Eastern Archipelago. The 
total population is estimated at about 
850,000,000, or more than half that of the 
whole world. A large portion of Asia is 
under the dominion of European powers. 
Russia possesses the whole of Northern 
Asia (Siberia) and a considerable por¬ 
tion of Central Asia, together with a 
great part of ancient Armenia, on the 
south of the Caucasus (pop. 16,000,000) ; 
Turkey holds Asia Minor, Syria and Pal¬ 
estine, part of Arabia, Mesopotamia, etc. 



Asia 


Asia 


(pop. 16,000,000) ; Great Britain rules 
over India, Ceylon, a part of the Indo- 
Chinese Peninsula (Upper and Lower 
Burmah), and several other possessions 
(pop. 300,000,000) ; France has acquired 
a considerable portion of the Indo- 
Chinese Peninsula, and has one or two 
other settlements (pop. 18,000,000) ; 
while to Holland belong Java, Sumatra, 
and other islands or parts of islands, and 
to the United States the Philippines. 
The chief independent States are the 
Chinese Empire (pop. over 400,000,000), 
Japan (pop. 50,000,000), Siam (pop. 
6,000,000), Afghanistan (5,000,000), 
Beluchistan, Persia (pop. 7,000,000), 
and the Arabian States (3,000,000). The 
most important of the religions of Asia 
are the Brahmanism of India, the creeds 
of Buddha, Confucius, and Lao-tse in 
China, and the various forms of Moham¬ 
medanism in Arabia, Persia, India, etc. 
Probably more than a half of the whole 
population profess some form of Bud¬ 
dhism. Several native Christian sects are 
found in India, Armenia, Kurdistan, and 
Syria. 

Asia is generally regarded as the cradle 
of the human race. It possesses the 
oldest historical documents, and, in com¬ 
mon with the immediately contiguous 
kingdom of Egypt, the oldest historical 
monuments in the world. The Old Testa¬ 
ment contains the oldest historical rec¬ 
ords which we have of any nation in the 
form of distinct narrative. The period 
at which Moses wrote was probably 
1500 or 1600 years before the Christian 
era. His and the later Jewish writings 
confine themselves almost exclusively to 
the history of the Hebrews; but in Baby¬ 
lonia, as in Egypt, civilization had made 
great advances long before this time. In 
China authentic history extends back 
probably to about 1000 b.c., with a long 
preceding period of which the names of 
dynasties are preserved without chron¬ 
ological arrangement. The kingdoms of 
Assyria, Babylonia, Media, and Persia, 
alternately predominated in South¬ 
western Asia. In regard to the his¬ 
tory of these monarchies much light 
has been obtained from the decipherment 
of the cuneiform inscriptions. The arms 
of the Pharaohs extended into Asia, they 
being followed by a wide Assyrian 
dominion. From Cyrus (b.c. 559), who 
extended the empire of Persia from the 
Indus to the Mediterranean, while his son, 
Cambyses, added Egypt and Lybia to it, 
to the conquest of Alexander (b.c., 330), 
Persia was the dominant power in West¬ 
ern Asia. Alexander’s great empire be¬ 
came broken uo into separate kingdoms, 
which were finally absorbed in the 


Roman Empire, and this ultimately ex¬ 
tended to the Tigris. Soon after the 
most civilized portions of the three con¬ 
tinents had been reduced under one em¬ 
pire the great event took place which 
forms the dividing line of history, the 
birth of Christ and the spread of Christi¬ 
anity. In a.d. 226 a protracted struggle 
began between the newer Persian empire 
and the Romans, wdiich lasted till the ad¬ 
vent of Mohammed and the conquests of 
the Arabians. Persia w 7 as the first great 
conquest of Mohammed’s followers. 
Syria and Egypt soon fell before their 
arms, and within forty years of the cele¬ 
brated flight of Mohammed from Mecca 
(the Hejira ), the sixth of the caliphs, or 
successors of the Prophet, was the most 
powerful sovereign of Asia. The no¬ 
madic tribes of the north next became the 
dominant race. In 999 Mahmud, whose 
father, born a Turki slave, became gov¬ 
ernor of Ghazni, conquered India, and 
established his rule. The dynasty of the 
Seljuk Tartars was established in Aleppo. 
Damascus, Iconium, and Kharism, and 
was distinguished for its struggles wnth 
the Crusaders. Othman, an emir of the 
Seljuk sultan of Iconium, established the 
Ottoman Empire in 1300. About 1220 
Genghis Khan, an independent Mongol 
chief, made himself master of Central 
Asia, conquered Northern China, overran 
Turkestan, Afghanistan, and Persia; his 
successors took Bagdad and extinguished 
the caliphate. In Asia Minor they over¬ 
threw the Seljuk dynasty. One of them, 
Timur or Tamerlane, carried fire and 
sword over Northern India and Western 
Asia, defeated and took prisoner Bajazet, 
the descendant of Othman (1402), and 
received tribute from the Greek emperor. 
The Ottoman Empire soon recovered 
from the blow inflicted by Timur, but 
Constantinople was taken and the East¬ 
ern Empire finally overthrown by the 
Sultan Mohammed II in 1453. China 
recovered its independence about 1368 
and was again subjected by the Manchu 
Tartars (1618-45), soon after wdiich it 
began to extend its empire over Central 
Asia. Siberia was conquered by the Cos¬ 
sacks on behalf of Russia (1580-84). 
The same country effected a settlement in 
the Caucasus about 1786, and during the 
later nineteenth century made steady ad¬ 
vances into Central and Eastern Asia, 
but was checked by Japan in the early 
twentieth. The discovery by the Portu¬ 
guese of the passage to India by the Cape 
of Good Hope led to their establishment 
in the coast of the peninsula (1498). 
They were speedily followed by the Span¬ 
ish, Dutch, French, and British. The 
struggle between the last two powers for 



Asia 


Asoka 


the supremacy of India was completed by 
the destruction of the French settlements 
(1760-65). France has recently acquired 
an extensive territory in Indo-China, 
while Britain is dominant in India and 
Burmah. At present the forms of gov¬ 
ernment in Asia range from the primitive 
rule of the nomad sheik to the despotism 
of China, now showing signs of becoming 
a constitutional empire. India has been 
brought by Britain directly under Euro¬ 
pean influence, and Japan has freely 
modeled her institutions on those of the 
West. 

Asia Central, a designation loosely 
given to the regions in the center 
of Asia east of the Caspian, also called 
Turkestan, and formerly Tartary. The 
eastern portion belongs to China, the 
western now to Russia. Russian Central 
Asia comprises the Kirghiz Steppe 
(Uralsk, Turgai, Akmolinsk, Semipala- 
tinsk, etc.), and what is now the govern¬ 
ment-general of Turkestan, besides the 
territory of the Turkomans, or Trans- 
caspia and Merv. Russia has thus ab¬ 
sorbed the old khanate of Khokand and 
part of Bokhara and Khiva, and controls 
the vassal territories of Bokhara and 
Khiva, the southern boundary being the 
Persian and Afghan frontiers. 

A ci a Min nr the m0st westerly por- 
ASla lYimor, tion 0 £ ^sia, being the 

peninsula lying west of the Upper Eu¬ 
phrates, and forming part of Asiatic 
Turkey. It forms an extensive plateau, 
with lofty mountains rising above it, the 
most extensive ranges being the Taurus 
and Anti-Taurus, which border it on the 
south and southeast, and rise to over 
10 000 feet. There are numerous salt 
and fresh-water lakes. The chief rivers 
are the Kizil-Irmak (Halys), Sakaria 
(Sangarius), entering the Black Sea; 
and the Sarabat (Hermus) and Menderes 
(Mseander), entering the iEgean. lhe 
coast regions are generally fertile, and 
have a genial climate; the interior is 
largely arid and dreary. Valuable for¬ 
ests and fruit-trees abound. Smyrna is 
the chief town. Anatolia is an equiva¬ 
lent name. . 

Asiphonata orier A “i 

amellibranchiate, bivalve molluscs, des¬ 
titute of the siphon or tube through 
which, in the Siphonata, the water that 
enters the gills is passed outwards. It 
includes the oysters, the scallop-shells, 
the pearl-oyster, the mussels, and in gen¬ 
eral the most useful and valuable mol¬ 
luscs. 

AcVaBad (as-ka-bad'), capital of the 
XibKdUdU R uss j an province of Trans- 

caspia, situated on the Transcaspian rail¬ 


way in the Akhal Tekke oasis. It was 
occupied by Skobeleff in Jan., 1881, after 
the sack of Geok Tep6. Its distance 
from Merv is 232 miles, from Herat 388 
miles, and it has become an active com¬ 
mercial center. Pop. about 25,000. 
AskcW ( as/ kti)> Anne, a victim of 
religious persecution; borp 
1521; martyred 1546. She was a daugh¬ 
ter of Sir William Askew, of Lincoln¬ 
shire. and was married to a wealthy 
neighbor named Kyme, who, irritated by 
her Protestantism, drove her from his 
house. In London, whither she went 
probably to procure a divorce, she spoke 
against the dogmas of the old faith, and 
being tried was condemned to death as a 
heretic. Being put to the rack to extort 
a confession concerning those with 
whom she corresponded, she continued 
firm, and was then taken to Smithfield, 
chained to a stake, and burned. 

Askia (ask'ya), a volcano near the 
J center of Iceland, first brought 
into notice by an eruption in 1875. Its 
crater is 17 miles in circumference, sur¬ 
rounded by a mountain ring from 500 
to 1000 feet high, the height of the moun¬ 
tain itself being between 4000 and 5000 
feet. 

Asmannshausen ( „ as '“ an ' h .° 1, 2 n >> 

a Prussian vil¬ 
lage on the Rhine, in the district of Wies¬ 
baden, celebrated for its wine. Many 
judges prefer the red wine of Asmanns¬ 
hausen to the best Burgundy, but it 
retains its merits for three or four years 
only. 

Asmodai, " Asmodeus. <as-m5'de- 

1 us), an evil spirit, who, as 
related in the book of Tobit, slew seven 
husbands of Sara, daughter of Raguel, 
but was driven away into the uttermost 
parts of Egypt by the young Tobias 
under the direction of the angel Raphael. 
Asmodai signifies a desolater, a destroy¬ 
ing angel. He is represented in the 
Talmud as the prince of demons who 
drove King Solomon from his kingdom. 

Asmonaeans fam ; 

lly of high-priests and 
princes who ruled over the Jews for 
about 130 years, from 153 b.c., when 
Jonathan, son of Mattathias, the great- 
grandson of Chasmon or Asmonseus, was 
nominated to the high-priesthood. 

Asnieres ( an *y ar )» a town on the 
Seine, a favorite boating 
resort with the Parisians. Pop. 35,883. 
AcnVa (a-s5'ka), an Indian sovereign, 
who reiffned 255-223 b.c. over 
the whole of Northern Hindustan, grand¬ 
son of Chandragupta or Sandracottus. 
He embraced Buddhism, and forced his 
subjects also to become converts. Many 



Asoka 


Aspern and Esslingen 


temples and topes still remaining are 
attributed to him. 

(Jonesia asoca), an Indian 
tree, natural order Legu- 
minosse, having a lovely flower, showing 
orange, scarlet, and bright yellow tints; 
sacred to the god Siva, and often men¬ 
tioned in Indian literature. 

AsODHS (a-so'pus), the name of sev- 
** era! rivers in Greece, of 
which the most celebrated is in Bceotia. 
Ag-p Aspic ( Naja , or Vipera haje), a 
** species of viper found in Egypt, 
resembling the cobra de capello or spec¬ 
tacle-serpent of the East Indies, and 
having a very venomous bite. When ap¬ 
proached or disturbed it elevates its 
head and body, swells out its neck, and 
appears to stand erect to attack the ag¬ 
gressor. Hence the ancient Egyptians 
believed that the asps 
were guardians of the 

spots they inhabited, and 
the figure of this reptile 
was adopted as an em¬ 
blem of the protecting 

genius of the world. 

The balancing motions 
made by it in the en¬ 

deavor to maintain the 
erect attitude have led cientT "Egyptian 
to the employment of monument, 
the asp as a dancing 

serpent by the African jugglers. The 
‘ deaf adder that stoppeth her ear ’ of 
Psalm Iviii, 4, 5, is translated asp in 
the margin, and seems to have been this 
species. Cleopatra is said to have com¬ 
mitted suicide by means of an asp’s bite, 
but the incident is generally associated 
with the Cerastes or horned viper, not 
with the haje. The name asp is also 
given to a viper ( Vipera aspis) com¬ 
mon on the continent of Europe. 

Asparagus fiSHi 

of the order Liliaceae, the young shoots 
of which, cut as they are emerging from 
the ground, are a favorite culinary 
vegetable. In Greece, and especially in 
the southern steppes of Russia and 
Poland, it is found in profusion; and its 
edible qualities were esteemed by the 
ancients. It is mostly boiled and served 
without admixture, and eaten with butter 
and salt. It is usually raised from seed; 
and the plants should remain three years 
in the ground before they are cut; after 
which, for ten or twelve years, they will 
continue to afford a regular annual sup¬ 
ply. The beds are protected by straw 
or litter in winter. Its diuretic prop¬ 
erties are ascribed to the presence of a 
crystalline substance found also in the 
potato, lettuce, etc. 



Aso'ka 


Acj-naQisi (as-pa'she-a), a celebrated 
xizyazici lady of ancient Greece) was 

born at Miletus, in Ionia, but passed a 
great part of her life at Athens, where 
her house was the general resort of the 
most distinguished men in Greece. She 
won the affection of Pericles, who united 
himself to Aspasia as closely as was 
permitted by the Athenian law, which 
declared marriage with a foreign wo¬ 
man illegal. Her power in the Stab 1 
has often been exaggerated, but it is 
beyond question that her genius left its 
mark upon the administration of Pericles. 
In 432-1 b.c. she was accused of im¬ 
piety, and was only saved from con¬ 
demnation by the eloquence and tears of 
Pericles. After his death (b.c. 429) 
Aspasia is said to have attached herself 
to a wealthy but obscure cattle-dealer of 
the name of Lysicles, whom she raised 
to a position of influence in Athens. 
Nothing more is known of her life. She 
had a son by Pericles, who was legiti¬ 
mated (b.c. 430") by a special decree of 
the people. 

Ast)e ( as> P a h a town of southern 
^ Spain, prov. of Alicante. There 
are fine vineyards and noted marble 
quarries in. its vicinity. Pop. 7927. 
Ac'nprt astrology, denotes the sit- 
1 9 uation of the planets with 

respect to each other. There are five 
different aspects: the sextile, when the 
planets are 60° distant; quartile, when 
they are 90° distant; trine, when 120° 
distant; opposition, when 180° distant; 
and conjunction, when both are in the 
same degree. The aspects were classed 
by astrologers as benign, malignant, or 
indifferent. 

As'-nen or trem bling poplar ( Populus 
* 9 tremula), a species of poplar 

indigenous to most mountainous regions 
throughout Europe and Asia. It is a 
beautiful tree of rapid growth and ex¬ 
tremely hardy, with nearly circular 
toothed leaves, smooth on both sides, 
and attached to footstalks so long and 
slender as to be shaken by the slightest 
wind; wood light, porous, soft, and of 
a white color, useful for various pur¬ 
poses. 


A<rnpn a city, capital of Pitkin Co., 
" , Colorado, 35 miles w. by s. of 

Leadville, center of a rich silver and 
lead mining district. Pop. 1834. 

Aspergillus (as-per-jil'us), the brush 
r ° used in Roman Catholic 


churches for sprinkling holy water on the 
people. It is said to have been originally 
made of hyssop. 


As'pern and Esslingen <°* Ess- 

(es'ling-en), two villages east of Vienna 



Asperuia 


Aspromonte 


and on the opposite bank of the Danube ; 
celebrated as the chief contested positions 
in the bloody but undecisive battle fought 
between the Archduke Charles and Napo¬ 
leon I, May 21 and 22, 1809, when it 
was estimated that the Austrians lost a 
third of their army, and the French no 
less than half. 

Asnprnla (as-per'u-la), the woodruff 

Asperuia ^ enu y s of plants< 

Asphalt, Asphaltum 

the most common variety of bitumen; 
also called mineral pitch. Asphalt is a 
compact, glossy, brittle, black or brown 
mineral, which breaks with a polished 
fracture, melts easily with a strong 
pitchy odor when heated, and when 
pure burns without leaving any ashes. 
It is found in the earth in many parts of 
Asia, Europe, and America, and in a 
soft or liquid state on the surface of the 
Dead Sea, which from this circumstance 
was called Asplialtites. It is of organic 
origin, the asphalt of the great Pitch 
Lake of Trinidad being derived from 
bituminous shales, containing vegetable 
remains in the process of transformation. 
Asphalt is produced artificially in making 
coal-gas. During the process much tarry 
matter is evolved and collected in re¬ 
torts. If this, be distilled, naphtha and 
other volatile matters escape, and asphalt 
is left behind. It is used for various 
purposes, very largely for street making 
in the cities of America and Europe. 


Asphalt Rock, 


a limestone impreg¬ 
nated with bitumen, 


found in large quanties in various locali¬ 
ties in Europe and America. It contains 
a variable quantity of bitumen (from 7 
or 8 to 20 or 30 per cent.) naturally dif¬ 
fused through it. The Val de Travers 
asphalt, of Switzerland, was discovered 
in 1710. Since then other asphalt rocks, 
as well as artificial preparations made by 
mixing bitumen, gas-tar, pitch, or other 
materials, with sand, chalk, etc., have 
been brought into competition with it. 

AcnLnrlpl (as'fo-del; Asphodelus), a 
xi.oJJIIUU.ci geims 0 f pi an t S) order Lili- 

aceae, consisting of perennials, with fascic¬ 
ulated fleshy roots, flowers arranged in 
racemes, six stamens inserted at the base 
of the perianth, a sessile almost spherical 
ovary with two cells, each containing two 
ovules; fruit a capsule with three cells, 
in each of which there are, as a rule, two 
seeds. They are fine garden plants, 
native of Southern Europe. The king’s 
spear, A. luteus, has yellow flowers, blos¬ 
soming in June. Asphodelus ramosus, 
which attains a height of 5 feet, is culti¬ 
vated in Algeria and elsewhere, its tuber¬ 
cles yielding a very pure alcohol, and the 


residue, together with the stalks and 
leaves, being used in making pasteboard 
and paper. The asphodel was a favorite 
plant among the ancients, who wete in the 
habit of planting it round their tombs. 

Asphyxia literally, the 

r v state ot a living animal in- 
which no pulsation can be perceived, but 
the term is more particularly applied to a 
suspension of^ the vital functions from 
causes hindering respiration. The nor¬ 
mal accompaniments of death from 
asphyxia are dark fluid blood, a congested 
brain and exceedingly congested lungs, 
the general engorgement of the viscera, 
an absence of blood from the left cavities 
of the heart while the right cavities and 
pulmonary artery are gorged. The res¬ 
toration of asphyxiated persons has been 
successfully accomplished at long periods 
after apparent death. The attempt 
should be made to maintain the heat of 
the body and to secure the inflation of 
the lungs as in the case of the apparently 
drowned. 

Ast)iC ( as ’pik)> a dish consisting of a 
* clear savory meat jelly, contain¬ 
ing fowl, game, fish, etc. 

AqTvirHlim (as-pid'i-um), a genus of 
/ibjJiu u 1 ferns, natural order Poly- 
podiaceae, comprising the shield-fern and 
male-fern. 

Aspinwall (as'pin-w&l). See Colon. 

Acrmra+P (as'pi-rat), a name given 
innate tQ any gound like our h ' t0 

the letter h itself, or to any mark of as¬ 
piration, as the Greek spiritus asper, or 
sounds as the Sanskrit kh, gh , bh, and 
rough breathing (‘or’). Such charac¬ 
ters as the Gr. ch , th, ph , are called 
aspirates. 

A cni rat nr (as'pi-ra-tor), an instru- 
xlbJJli citUi ment uged tQ promote the 

flow of a gas from one vessel into an¬ 
other by means of liquid. The simplest 
form of aspirator is a cylindrical vessel 
containing water, with a pipe at the up¬ 
per end which communicates with the 
vessel containing the gas, and a pipe at 
the lower end also, with a stopcock and 
with its extremity bent up. By allow¬ 
ing a portion of the water to run off by 
the pipe at the lower part of the aspira¬ 
tor a measured quantity of air or other 
gas is sucked into the upper part. 

A snip-mum (as-ple'ni-um), a genus of 

iispienium ferns> of the natural 

order Polypodiaceae. Several are natives 
of the United States. The dwarf spleen- 
wort is a very beautiful little fern. 
Asnrmrmnfp (as-pro-mon'te), a 

Aspromonie mountain of Italy i? 

the southwest of Calabria, where Gari¬ 
baldi was wounded and taken prisoner 



Aspropotamo 


Assam 


with greater part of his army, in 
August, 3862. 

Aspropot'amo. See Achelous. 

GUlth Herbert Henry, British 
™ > premier, born at Morley, 

England, in 1852; educated at Oxford; 
became a barrister, and was elected to 
Parliament for East Fife in 1886; Sec¬ 
retary of State for Home Department 
1892-95; arbitrated the strike of the 
London cabmen in 1893. He ably ad¬ 
vocated the free trade policy in opposi¬ 
tion to Chamberlain in 1903; in 1905 
became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 
the Campbell-Bannerman cabinet, and 
on the resignation of the premier, April 
5, 1908, Mr. Asquith succeeded as 

premier. The chief events of his gov¬ 
ernment were the advocacy and adoption 
of old age pensions and the financial 
scheme of taxation of the estates of the 
nobility which led to the defeat of the 
House of Lords and the taking from 
this branch of the Parliament its power 
of vetoing bills passed by the Commons. 
Acrapl (az'ra-el), the Mohammedan 
angel of death, who takes the 
soul from the body. 

Agg (Equus aslnus), a species of the 
horse genus, supposed by Darwin 
to have sprung from the wild variety 
(Asinus tceniopus) found in Abyssinia; 
by some writers to be a descendant of 
the onager or wild ass, inhabiting the 
mountainous deserts of Tartary, etc.; 
and by others to have descended from 
the kiang or djiggetal (A. hemidnus) of 
southwestern Asia. Both in color and 
size the ass is exceedingly variable, 
ranging from dark gray and reddish 
brown to white, and from the size of a 
Newfoundland dog in North India to that 
of a good-sized horse. In the south¬ 
western countries of Asia and in Egypt, 
in some districts of Southern Europe, as 
in Spain, and in Kentucky and Peru, 
great attention has been paid to selec¬ 
tion and interbreeding, with a result no 
less remarkable than in the case of the 
horse. Thus in Syria there appear to 
be four distinct breeds: a light and 
graceful animal used by ladies, an Arab 
breed reserved for the saddle, an ass of 
heavier build in use for plowing and 
draft purposes, and the large Damascus 
breed. The efforts made to raise the 
deteriorated British breed have been 
only partially successful. The male ass 
is mature at two years of age, the fe¬ 
male still earlier. The she-ass carries 
her young eleven months. The teeth of 
the young ass follow the same order of 
appearance and renewal as those of the 
horse. The life of the ass does not 



usually exceed thirty years. It is in 
general much healthier than the horse, 
and is maintained in this condition by a 
smaller quantity and coarser quality of 
food; it is superior to the horse in its 
ability to carry heavy burdens over the 
most precipitous roads, and it is in no 
respect its inferior in intelligence, de¬ 
spite the reputation for stupidity which 
it has borne from very ancient times. 
The skin is used as parchment to cover 
drums, etc., and in the East is made into 
shagreen. The hybrid offspring of the 
horse and the female ass is the hinny, 
that of the ass and the mare is the mule; 
but the latter is by far the larger and 
more useful animal. Asses’ milk, long 
celebrated for its sanative qualities, 
more closely resembles that of a woman 
than any other. It is very similar in 
taste, and throws up an equally fluid 
cream, which is not convertible into 
butter. The ass is familiarly known in 
the United States and Britain as the 
donkey. 

AccaTi (as-sab'), a bay in Africa, 
studded with islands, on the 
southwest coast of the Red Sea. Here 
is an Italian station and settlement 
declared a colony and free port by Italy 
on January 9th, 1881. 

Assafcetida. See Asafetida. 

Accoi-nulm (as'-I; Euterpe oleracea), 

iissai paim a native of tropical s 

America, only about 4 inches in diam¬ 
eter and 60 or 80 feet high, with a 
crown of leaves, beneath which a small 
fruit grows on branched horizontal 
spadices. The pulp of the fruit mixed 
with water is used as a beverage. 

A coal (as-sal'), a salt lake in north- 
eastern Africa, in Adal. 
Assam ( as_sara ')> a Chief commission- 
ership or province of British 
India, on the northeast border of Ben¬ 
gal, bounded on the north by the Hima¬ 
layas, on the east and south mainly by 
Burmah; area, 49,004 square miles. It 
forms a series of fertile valleys watered 
by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, 
the valley of the Brahmaputra, which is 
the main one, consisting of rich alluvial 
plains, either but little elevated above 
the river or so low that large ex¬ 
tents of them are flooded for three or 
four days once or twice in the year, 
while the course of the river often 
changes. The climate is marked by 
great humidity, and malarious diseases 
are common in the low grounds; other¬ 
wise it is not unhealthy. The whole 
province, except the cultivated area, 
may be designated as forest, the trees 
including teak, sal, sissoo, the date and 



Assapan 


Assaying 


sago palms, the areca palm (the betel-nut 
tree), the Indian fig-tree, etc. The ar¬ 
ticle of most commercial importance is 
tea, which was first exported in 1838, 



Assamese Gossains, or Land-owners. 

and the yield of which is now very 
large. Rice is the principal food crop, 
and other crops are Indian corn, pulse, 
oil-seeds, sugar-cane, hemp, jute, pota¬ 
toes, etc. In the jungles and forests 
roam herds of elephants, the rhinoceros, 
tiger, buffalo, leopard, bear, wild hog, 
jackal, fox, goat, and various kinds of 
deer. Among serpents are the python 
and the cobra. Pheasants, partridges, 
snipe, wild peacock, and many kinds of 
water-fowl abound. Coal (which is 
begun to be worked), petroleum, and 
limestone are found in abundance, iron 
is smelted to a small extent, gold dust is 
found, lime is exported to Bengal. 
There is no single Assamese nationality, 
and the Assamese language is merely a 
modern dialect of Bengali. Population 
6.126,343, of which about 3,000,000 are 
Hindus, 1,500,000 Mohammedans, 9,000 
Buddhists, and 17,000 Christians. The 
laborers in the tea-gardens are mostly 
drawn from Bengal. In 1826 Assam be¬ 
came a possession of Britain, being taken 
from the Burmese, who had made them¬ 
selves masters of it about the end of the 
eighteenth century. 

Acccman (as'a-pan; Sciuropterus 

iissapan vo i uceUa)f the Aying- 

squirrel of North America, an elegant 
little animal with folds of skin along its 
sides which enable it to take leaps of 40 
or 50 yards. 

Assassins ( a * sa s'inz), an Asiatic 

order or society having 

the practice of assassination as its most 
distinctive feature, founded by Hassan 


Ben Sabbah, a dai or missionary of the 
heterodox Mohammedan sect, the Ismael- 
ites. The society grew rapidly in num¬ 
bers, and in 1090 the Persian fortress of 
Alamut fell into their hands. Other ter¬ 
ritories were added, and the order be¬ 
came a recognized military power. Its 
organization comprised seven ranks, at 
its head being the Sheikh-al-Jebal or 
* Old man of the mountains/ Upon a 
select band fell the work of assassination, 
to which they were stimulated by the in¬ 
toxicating influence of hashish. From 
the epithet Hashishim (hemp-eaters) 
which was applied to the order, the Eu¬ 
ropean word assassin has been derived. 
For nearly two centuries they maintained 
their power under nine sheiks. Hassan, 
after a long and prosperous reign, died 
in 1124. Most of his successors died 
violent deaths at the hands of relatives 
or dependents. After proving themselves 
strong enough to withstand the powerful 
sultans Noureddin and Saladin, and 
making themselves feared by the Cru¬ 
saders, the Assassins were overcome by 
the Tartar leader, Hulaku. The last 
chief, Rokneddin. was killed for an act 
of treachery subsequent to his capture, 
and his death was followed by a general 
massacre of the Assassins, in which 
12,000 pprished. Dispersed bands led a 
roving life in the Syrian mountains, and 
it is alleged that in the Druses and other 
small existing tribes their descendants 
are still to be found. 

A<sc;cmlf (as-salt'), in law, an at¬ 
tempt or offer, with force and 
violence, to do a corporal hurt to an¬ 
other, as by striking at him with or 
without a weapon. If a person lift up or 
stretch forth his arm and offer to strike 
another, or menace any one with any 
staff or weapon, it is an assault in law. 
Assault, therefore, does not necessarily 
imply a hitting or blow, because in tres¬ 
pass for assault and battery a man 
may be found guilty of the assault and 
acquitted of the battery. But every 
battery includes an assault. 

Acscavp Assye (as-si'), a village in 
ixxzayv, gouthern India( ,* n Hydera¬ 
bad, where Wellington (then Major- 
general Wellesley) gained a famous vic¬ 
tory in 1803. With only 4500 troops at 
his disposal he completely routed the 
Mahratta force of 50,000 men and 100 
guns. The victory, however, cost him 
more than a third of his men. 

A ravine 1 ’ (a-sa'ing), the estimation 
Abbdying of the amount of pure 

metal, and especially of the precious 
metals, in an ore or alloy. In the case 
of silver the assay is either by the dry or 
by the wet process. The dry process is 



Assaying 


Assessor 


called cupellation from the use of a small 
and very porous cup, called a cupel, 
formed of well-burned and finely-ground 
bone-ash made into a paste with water. 
The cupel, being thoroughly dried, is 
placed in a fire-clay oven about the size 
of a drain-tile, with a flat sole and arched 
roof, and with slits at the sides to adroit 
air. This oven, called a muffle, is set in 
a furnace, and when it is at a red heat 
the assay, consisting of a small weighed 
portion of the alloy wrapped in sheet- 
lead, is laid upon the cupel. The heat 
causes the lead to volatilize or combine 
with the other metals, and to sink with 
them into the cupel, leaving a bright 
globule of pure metallic silver, which 
gives the amount of silver in the alloy 
operated on. In the wet process the 
alloy is dissolved in nitric acid, and to 
the solution are added measured quan¬ 
tities of a solution of common salt of 
known strength, which precipitates 
chloride of silver. The operation is con¬ 
cluded when no further precipitate is ob¬ 
tained on the addition of the salt solu¬ 
tion, and the quantity of silver is cal¬ 
culated from the amount of salt solution 
used. An alloy of gold is first cupelled 
with lead as above, with the addition of 
three parts of silver for every one of 
gold. After the cupellation is finished 
the alloy of gold and silver is beaten and 
rolled out into a thin plate, which is 
curled up by the fingers into a little 
spiral or cornet. This is put into a flask 
with nitric acid, which dissolves away 
the silver and leaves the cornet dark and 
brittle. After washing with water the 
cornet is boiled with stronger nitric 
acid to remove the last traces of silver, 
well washed, and then allowed to drop 
into a small crucible, in which it is 
heated, and then it is weighed. The 
assay of gold, therefore, consists of two 
parts: cupellation, by which inferior 
metals (except silver) are removed; and 
quartation, by which the added silver 
and any silver originally present are got 
rid of. The quantity of silver added has 
to be regulated to about three times 
that of the gold. If it be more the 
cornet breaks up, if it be less the gold 
protects small quantities of the silver 
from the action of the acid. Where, as 
in some gold manufactured articles, these 
methods of assay cannot be applied, a 
streak is drawn with the article upon a 
touchstone consisting of coarse-grained 
Lydian quartz saturated with bitumin¬ 
ous matter, or of black basalt. The 
practised assayer will detect approxi¬ 
mately the richness of the gold from the 
color of the streak, which may be further 
subjected to an acid test. 


Accpo’qi (as'se-ga), a spear used as a 

weapon among the Kaffirs of 
S. Africa, made of hard wood tipped with 
iron, and used for throwing or thrust¬ 
ing. 

Assembly ( as - sem 'bli), General, the 

J supreme ecclesiastical 
court of the Established Church of Scot¬ 
land, consisting of delegates from every 
presbytery, university, and royal burgh 
in Scotland. The Free Church of Scot¬ 
land also has a General Assembly and 
also the Presbyterian churches in Ire¬ 
land and America. 

Assembly, National (France), a 

J ’ body set up in France on 
the eye of the revolution. Upon the con¬ 
vocation of the States-general by Louis 
XYI the privileged nobles and clergy 
refused to deliberate in the same chamber 
with the commons or tiers-etat (third 
estate).. The latter, therefore, on the 
proposition of the Abbe Si6y£s, consti¬ 
tuted themselves an assemblee nationale, 
with legislative powers (June 17, 1789). 
They bound themselves by oath not to 
separate until they had furnished France 
with a constitution, and the court was 
compelled to give its assent. In the 
3250 decrees passed by the assembly 
were laid the foundations of a new epoch, 
and having accomplished this task it 
dissolved itself, Sept. 30, 1791. 

Sell ca P*t a l the province of 
* Drenthe, in the Netherlands, 
15 miles s. of Gronigar. Pop. 11,191. 
As'ser *J° HN > a learned British ec- 
J clesiastic, originally a monk 
of St. David’s, distinguished as the in¬ 
structor, companion, and biographer of 
Alfred the Great, who appointed him 
abbot of two or three different monas¬ 
teries, and finally Bishop of Sherborne, 
where he died in 908 or 910. His life 
of Alfred, written in Latin ( Annales 
Rerum Gcstarum /Elfredi Magni), is of 
very great value, though its authenticitv 
has been questioned. There is an Eng¬ 
lish translation in Bohn’s Antiquarian 
Library. 


Assessment (a-ses'ment), the act of 

determining the value of 
a man’s property or occupation for the 
purpose of levying a tax.—The sum as¬ 
sessed or levied; a tax; a rate.— An as¬ 
sessment of damages is the fixing of the 
amount of damages to which the pre¬ 
vailing party in a suit is entitled. 

Assessor ( a ‘. s es'or), a person ap¬ 
pointed to ascertain and fix 
the amount of taxes, rates, etc., and to 
make assessments. The ‘ assessors of 
taxes,’ so named in the United States, 
are commonly termed ‘ surveyors’ in 
England. 



Assets 


Assiniboia 


Assets ( as,e ^ s 5 French, assez, enough), 
zxaacta p r0 p er ty 0 r goods available 

for the payment of a bankrupt or de¬ 
ceased person’s obligations. Assets are 
personal or real, the former comprising 
all goods, chattels, etc., devolving upon 
the executor as salable to discharge 
debts and legacies. In commerce and 
bankruptcy the term is often used as the 
antithesis of ‘ liabilities,’ to designate 
the stock in trade and entire property of 
an individual or an association. 

A ccirlA'an* Chasideians, or Chasi- 
/IbbiUC ana, DIM? one of the two great 

sects into which, after the Babylonish 
captivity, the Jews were divided with re¬ 
gard to the observance of the law—the 
Chasidim accepting it in its later develop¬ 
ments, the Zadikim professing adherence 
only to the law as given by Moses. From 
the Chasidim sprang the Pharisees, Tal¬ 
mudists, Rabbinists, Cabbalists, etc. 

Accip-n+n (as-i-en'to), the permission 
naaicntu 0 £ t ^ e g pan i s h government 

to a foreign nation to import negro slaves 
from Africa into the Spanish colonies 
in America, for a limited time, on pay¬ 
ment of certain duties. It was accorded 
to the Netherlands about 1552, to the 
Genoese in 1580, and to the French 
Guinea Company (afterwards the As- 
siento Company) in 1702. In 1713 the 
celebrated assiento treaty with Britain 
for thirty years was concluded at 
Utrecht. By this contract the British 
obtained the right to send yearly a ship 
of 500 tons, with all sorts of merchandise, 
to the Spanish colonies. This led to 
frequent abuses and contraband trade; 
acts of violence followed, and in 1739 a 
war broke out between the two powers. 
At the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, 
four years more were granted to the 
British; but in the Treaty of Madrid, 
two years later, £100,000 sterling were 
promised for the relinquishment of the 
two remaining years, and the contract 
was annulled. 

A cci cm a (as-e-nya), the name of 

Assignais the national paper cur . 

rency in the time of the French revolu¬ 
tion. Assignats to the value of four 
hundred million francs were first struck 
off by the Constituent Assembly, with the 
approbation of the king, April 19, 1790, to 
be redeemed with the proceeds of the sale 
of the confiscated goods of the church. 
August 27th of the same year, Mira- 
beau urged the issuing of 2,000,000,000 
francs of new assignats, which caused a 
dispute in the assembly. Vergasse and 
Dupont, who saw that the plan was an 
invention of Clavifcre for his own en¬ 
richment, particularly distinguished them¬ 
selves as the opponents of the scheme. 


Mirabeau’s exertions, however, were 
seconded by Pethion, and 800,000,000 
francs more were issued. They were in¬ 
creased by degrees to 45,578,000,000, and 
their value rapidly declined. In the 
winter of 1792-93 they lost 30 per cent., 
and in spite of the law to compel their 
acceptance at their nominal value they 
continued to fall till in the spring of 
1796 they had sunk to one three hundred 
and forty-fourth their nominal value. 
This depreciation was due partly to 
the want of confidence in the stability of 
the government, partly to the fact that 
the coarsely-executed and easily counter¬ 
feited assignats were forged in great num¬ 
bers. They were withdrawn by the Di¬ 
rectory from the currency, and at length 
redeemed by mandats at one-thirtieth of 
their nominal value. 

AssiffUGG (as-i-ne'), a person a p- 
® pointed by another to trans¬ 
act some business, or exercise some par¬ 
ticular privilege or power. Formerly the 
persons appointed under a commission of 
bankruptcy, to manage the estate of the 
bankrupt on behalf of the creditors, were 
so called, but now trustees or re¬ 
ceivers. 


Assignment ( f a ‘ s! , n 'T n V’ f is a trans ' 

& fer by deed of any prop¬ 

erty, or right, title, or interest in prop¬ 
erty, real or personal. Every demand 
connected with a right of property is as¬ 
signable. 

Assimilation £ 0 “ sh “& 

substances are converted into animal 
tissue. The nutritive elements are first 
taken into the blood, and conveyed to all 
parts of the body, there to aid in re¬ 
building tissues that have become wasted 
through organic activity. The tissues 
draw from the blood suitable material 
and in some way not known to us add 
it to their structure. It is this final act 
that constitutes assimilation. By it 
bones are united after being broken, and 
even lost portions of them restored, and 
whole limbs of some of the lower animals 
are often rebuilt when lost. In some 
cases a great part of the body can be thus 
restored. 


A coiniBrno (a-sin-i-boi'a), the small- 

AssmiDoia est of the four districts 

into which a portion of the northwestern 


territories of Canada was divided in 
1882. It is now divided unequally be¬ 
tween the two new provinces formed in 
1905 out of those four territories, the 
greater part of it being assigned to Sas¬ 
katchewan, and a western strip to Al¬ 
berta. It contains much good wheat 
land. Some coal is mined. Timber is 
plentiful and varied. 



Assiniboine 


Assumpsit 


Assinihoinp (a-sin'i-boin), a river 

ASbimuoine of Canada> which flows 

through Manitoba and joins the Red 
River at Winnipeg, about 40 miles above 
the entrance of the latter into Lake Win¬ 
nipeg, after a somewhat circuitous course 
of about 500 miles from the west and 
northwest. Steamers ply on it for over 
300 miles. 


Assisi (as-se'se), a small town in 
Italy, in the province of Um¬ 
bria, 20 miles north of Spoleto, the see 
of a bishop, and famous as the birth¬ 
place of St. Francis d’Assisi. The splen¬ 
did church built over the chapel where 
the saint received his first impulse to de¬ 
votion is one of the finest remains of 
mediaeval Gothic architecture. 


AssizCS ( a_sI,zez K a term chiefly used 
in England to signify the 
sessions of the courts held at Westmin¬ 
ster prior to Magna Charta, but there¬ 
after appointed by successive enactments 
to be held annually in every county. 
Twelve judges, who are members of the 
highest courts in England, twice in every 
year perform a circuit into all the 
counties into which the kingdom is 
divided (the counties being grouped into 
seven circuits), to hold these assizes, at 
which both civil and criminal cases are 
decided. Occasionally this circuit is per¬ 
formed a third time for the purpose of 
jail-delivery. In London and Middlesex, 
instead of circuits, courts of nisi prius 
are held. At the assizes all the justices 
of the peace of the county are bound to 
attend. Special commissions of assize 
are granted for inquest into certain 
causes. 

Among the more important historic 
uses of the term assise are its applica¬ 
tion to any sitting or deliberative coun¬ 
cil, and its transference thence to their 
ordinances, decrees, or assessments. In 
the latter sense we have the Assizes of 
Jerusalem, a code of feudal laws formu¬ 
lated in 1099 under Godfrey of Bouillon; 
the Assizes of Clarendon (1166), of 
Northampton (1176), and of Woodstock 
(1184) ; also the assisce venalium (1203), 
for regulating the prices of articles of 
common consumption; the Assize of 
Arms (1181), an ordinance for organiz¬ 
ing the national militia, etc. 


Associated (a-soshi-at-ed) Press, a 
combination of daily 
newspapers, formed in New York in 
1850, for the procuring of news by tele¬ 
graph, or otherwise. For a time it was 
strongly opposed by a rival organization, 
but has latterly renewed its strength, 
and remains the leading distributor of 
news in the country. 


AccnPia+inn ( a-so'shi-a-shun ) of 

Association lDEAS> the term used in 

psychology to comprise the conditions 
under which one idea is able to recall 
another to consciousness. Recently some 
psychologists have, been disposed to 
classify these conditions under two gener¬ 
al heads: the law of contiguity and the 
law of association. The first states the 
fact that actions, sensations, emotions, 
and ideas, which have occurred together, 
or in close succession, tend to suggest 
each other when any one of them is after¬ 
wards presented to the mind. The sec¬ 
ond indicates that present actions, sen¬ 
sations. emotions, or ideas tend to recall 
their like from among previous experi¬ 
ences. Other laws have at times been 
enunciated, but they are reducible to 
these; thus, the * law of contrast or con¬ 
trariety ’ is properly a case of contiguity. 
On their physical side the principles of as¬ 
sociation correspond with the physiologi¬ 
cal facts of re-excitation of the same 
nervous centers, and in this respect they 
have played an important part in the 
endeavor to place psychology upon a 
basis of positive science. The laws of 
association, taken in connection with the 
law of relativity, are held by many to be 
a complete exposition of the phenomena 
of intellect. 


Assonance ( as '6-nans), in poetry, a 

term used when the ter¬ 
minating words of lines have the same 
vowel-sound but make no proper rhyme. 
Such verses, having what we should con¬ 
sider false rhymes, are regularly em¬ 
ployed in Spanish poetry; but cases are 
not wanting in leading British poets. 
Mrs. Browning not only used them fre¬ 
quently, but justified the use of them. 

Assouan (& s -s6-> n '), or Essouan 

( kyene ), a town of Upper 
Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile, be¬ 
low the first cataract. The granite 
quarries of the Pharaohs, from which 
were procured the stones for the great 
obelisks and colossal statues of ancient 
times, are in the neighborhood. Here the 
British authorities began the building of 
a colossal dam across the Nile in 1889 
and finished it in 1902. It forms a great 
lake, enabling a large area of land to be 
irrigated, but burying under its waters in 
great part the magnificent temple of 
Isis on the island of Philrn. A height of 
23 feet more is being added to the dam, 
which will completely submerge the 
temple. The whole dam will supply 
water to 950,000 acres of land. Trade 
in dates, senna, etc. Pop. (1907) 16,128. 

Assumpsit (a-sum'sit), in common 
law, an action to recover 



Assumption 


Assyria 


compensation for the non-performance of 
a parole promise; that is, a promise not 
contained in a deed under seal. Assump¬ 
sits are of two kinds, express and implied. 
The former are where the contracts are 
actually made in word or writing; the 
latter are such as the law implies from 
the justice of the case; e. g. y employment 
to do work implies a promise to pay. 

Ac^nirmtinn (a-sum'shun), the eccle- 
iissumpuon siastical festival cele¬ 
brating the miraculous ascent into heaven 
of the Virgin Mary’s body as well as her 
soul, kept on the 15th of August. The 
legend first appeared in the third or 
fourth century, and the festival was 
instituted some three centuries later. 
Assumption, | ee ^ B j? o /ara g »a y . 

Assurance. See Insurance. 

AccTTria (a-sir'i-a; the Asshur of the 
Hebrews, Athura of the 
ancient Persians), an ancient monarchy 
in Asia, intersected by the upper course 
of the Tigris, and having the Armenian 
mountains on the north and Babylonia on 
the south ; area, probably about 100,000 
sq. miles; surface partly mountainous, 
hilly, or undulating, partly a portion of 
the fertile Mesopotamian plain. The 



Assyrian Soldiers. 


numerous remains of ancient habitations 
show how thickly this region must have 
once been peopled; now, for the most 
part, it is a mere wilderness. The chief 
cities of Assyria in the days of its pros¬ 
perity were Nineveh, the site of which 
is marked by mounds opposite Mosul 
(Nebi Yunus and Koyunjik), Calah or 
Kalakh (the modern Nimrud), Asshur 
or A1 Asur (Kalah Sherghat), Sargina 
(Khorsabad), and Arbela (Arbil). 


Much light has been thrown on the his¬ 
tory of Assyria by the decipherment of 
the cuneiform inscriptions obtained by 
excavation. The assertion of the Bible 
that the early inhabitants of Assyria 
went from Babylonia is in conformity with 
the traditions of later times, and with 
inscriptions on the disinterred Assyrian 
monuments. For a long period the coun¬ 
try was subject to governors appointed 
by the kings of Babylonia, but it became 
independent probably as early as 1500 
b. c. About the end of the fourteenth 
century its king, Shalmaneser, is said 
to have founded the city of Kalakh or 
Calah; his son Tiglath-Ninip conquered 
the whole of the valley of the Euphrates. 
The five following reigns were chiefly oc¬ 
cupied by wars with the Babylonians, who 
had thrown off the Assyrian yoke. About 
1120 Tiglath-Pileser I, one of the great¬ 
est of the sovereigns of the first Assyrian 
monarchy, ascended the throne, and 
carried his conquests to the Mediterra¬ 
nean on the one side and to the Caspian 
and the Persian Gulf on the other. At 
his death there ensued a period of de¬ 
cline, which lasted over 200 years. 
Under Assur-nazir-pal, who reigned from 
884 to 859 b.c., Assyria once more ad¬ 
vanced to the position of the leading 
power in the world, the extent of his 
kingdom being greater than that of Tig¬ 
lath-Pileser. The magnificent palaces, 
temples, and other buildings of his reign 
prove the advance of the nation in 
wealth, art, and luxury. In 859 he was 
succeeded by his son Shalmaneser II, 
whose career of conquest was equally 
successful. He reduced Babylon to a 
state of vassalage, and came into hostile 
contact with the kings of Palestine, 
Tyre and Sidon. The old dynasty came 
to an end in the person of Assurnirari II, 
who was driven from the throne by a 
usurper, Tiglath-Pileser, in 745, after a 
struggle of some years. No sooner was 
this able ruler firmly seated on the throne 
than he made an expedition into Baby¬ 
lonia, followed by conquering inroads into 
Syria and Armenia. He carried the 
Assyrian arms from Lake Van on the 
north to the Persian Gulf on the south, 
and from the confines of India on the 
east to the Nile on the west. He was, 
however, driven from his throne by Shal¬ 
maneser IV (727), who blockaded Tyre 
for five years, invaded Israel, and be¬ 
sieged Samaria, but died before the city 
was reduced. His successor, Sargon 
(722-705), a usurper, claimed descent 
from the ancient Assyrian kings, and 
proved an able ruler and soldier. He 
subdued Damascus, Elam and Babylon, 
advanced through Philistia and defeated 







Assyria 


Assyria 


the forces of Egypt and Gaza. In 710 
Merodach-Baladan was driven out of 
Babylonia by Sargon, after holding it 
for twelve years as an independent king, 
and being supported by the rulers of 
Egypt and Palestine; his allies were also 
crushed, Judah was overrun, Ashdod 
leveled to the ground, and Cyprus taken. 
He spent the latter years of his reign in 
internal reforms, in the midst of which he 
was murdered, being succeeded by Sen¬ 
nacherib, one of his younger sons, in 
705. Sennacherib at once had to take up 
arms against Merodach-Baladan, who 
had again obtained possession of Babylon. 
In 701 fresh outbreaks in Syria led him 
in that direction, and King Hezekiah of 
Judea was defeated and forced to pay 
tribute. A second expedition into Syria 
is briefly recorded in II Kings, xix, where 
we are told that, as his army lay before 
Libnah, in one night the angel of Jehovah 
went out, and smote in the camp of the 
Assyrians 185,000 men. In 681 he was 
murdered by his two sons, Adrammelech 
and Sharezer, but they were defeated by 
their brother Esar-haddon, who then 
mounted the throne. Esar-haddon fixed 
his residence at Babylon, and made it his 
capital. The most important event of 
this reign was the conquest of Egypt, 
which was reduced to a state of vassal¬ 
age. He associated his son Assur-bani-pal 
with him in the government of the king¬ 
dom (669), and two years later this 
prince (the Sardanapalus of the Greeks) 
became sole ruler. In 652 a general in¬ 
surrection broke out, headed by Sam- 
mughes, governor of Babylonia, Assur- 
bani-pal’s own brother, and including 
Babylonia, Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia. 
Egypt was the only power, however, 
which regained its independence; fire, 
sword, and famine reduced the rest to 
submission. In 640 the Medes revolted, 
and later made themselves independent. 
Though the king’s character was marked 
by cruelty and sensuality, he was a zeal¬ 
ous patron of the arts and learning. He 
died in 625, and was succeeded by his son 
Assur-emid-ilin (or Sarakos), under 
whom Babylon definitely threw off the 
Assyrian yoke. The country continued 
rapidly to decline, fighting hard for 
existence until the capital Nineveh was 
captured and burned by the allied 
forces of the Medes and Babylonians, 
about 607 or 606 b.c., and the great 
Assyrian empire came to an end. The 
story of Sardanapalus associated with 
this event is a mere myth or legend. As¬ 
syria now fell partly to Media, partly to 
Babylonia, and afterwards formed with 
Babylonia one of the satrapies of the 
Persian empire. In 321 b.c. it became 


part of the kingdom of the Seleucidse; 
later on it came under Parthian rule, and 
was more than once a Roman possession. 
For a long period it was under the 
caliphs of Bagdad. In 1638 the Turks 
wrested it from the Persians, and it has 
continued under their dominion since 
that date. 

The original inhabitants of Assyria 
and Babylonia are known as Accadians 
(or Sumerians). They seem to have 
belonged to the Turanian or Ural-Altaic 
race, to the same stock as that from 
which the Finns, Turks, and Magyars 
have descended. In early times a Semitic 
people spread over the country, and 
mingled with or supplanted the original 
inhabitants, while their language took 
the place of the Accadian, the latter be¬ 
coming a dead language. The Assyrian 
language is closely allied to Hebrew and 
Phoenician, and changed little through¬ 
out the 1500 years during which we 
can trace it in the inscriptions. It 
continued to be written with the cunei¬ 
form or arrowheaded character down to 
the third century B.c. The greater part 
of the Assyrian literature was stamped 
in minute characters on baked bricks, the 
subjects comprising hymns to the gods, 
mythological and epic poems, and works 
on history, chronology, astrology, law, 
etc. The Accadian literature was largely 
reproduced, the dead language in which 
it was written becoming classical and 
studied as Greek and Latin are in our 
day. The Assyrian religion was almost 
the same as that of Babylonia, but in 
addition to the worship of the Babylo¬ 
nian deities Assyrians adored their na¬ 
tional deity, Assur, who was called king 
of all the gods, the god who created him¬ 
self. He was symbolically represented by 
a winged circle inclosing the figure of an 
archer. After Assur came twelve chief 
deities, including Anu, the father of the 
gods; Bel, the lord of the world; Hea, 
the lord of the sea; Sin, the moon-god; 
Shamas, the sun-god; Istar, a powerful 
goddess with various attributes; Ninip, 
god of hunting (the man-bull) ; Nergal, 
god of war (the man-lion) ; etc. A num¬ 
ber of spirits, good and evil, presided over 
the minor operations of nature. There 
were set forms regulating the worship of 
all the gods and spirits, and prayers to 
each were inscribed on clay tablets with 
blanks for the names of the persons using 
them. 

The Assyrians were far advanced in 
art and industry, and in civilization in 
general. They constructed large build¬ 
ings, especially palaces, of a most im¬ 
posing character, the materials being 
brick, burned or sun-dried, stone, alabas- 



Assyria 


Assyria 


ter slabs for lining and adorning the walls 
internally and externally, and timber for 
pulleys and roofs. These alabaster slabs 
were elaborately sculptured with designs 
serving to throw much light on the man¬ 
ners and customs of the people. A most 



Portal at Khorsabad. 


characteristic feature, of the palaces were 
gigantic figures of winged, human-headed 
bulls, placed at gateways (often arched 
over) or other important points; figures 
of lions, etc., were also similarly em¬ 
ployed. The palaces were raised on high 
terraces, and often comprised a great 
number of apartments; there were no 
windows, light being obtained by carrying 
the walls up to a certain height and then 
raising on them pillars to support the 
roof and admit light and air. The As¬ 
syrian sculptures, as a rule, were in re¬ 
lief, figures in the full round being the ex¬ 
ception. In many cases, however, as 
in those of winged bulls and other mon¬ 
sters, a compromise was attempted be¬ 
tween the full round and relief, the 
heads being worked free and the body in 
relief, with an additional leg to meet, the 
exigencies of different points of view. 
More than three-quarters of the reliefs 
are of warlike scenes; hunting scenes are 
also favorite subjects; occasionally in¬ 
dustrial scenes in connection with palace 
building are represented, and less fre¬ 
quently religious ceremonials. The art¬ 
ists had no conception of perspective. In 
some of the hunting scenes an exceedingly 
high level of art is attained. The vestiges 
of Assyrian painting consist chiefly of 
fragments of stucco and glazed tiles, on 
which are bands of ornament, rows of 
rosettes and anthemions, woven strap- 
work , conventionalized mythic animals, 
and occasionally figures. In these traces 
of Egyptian influence are to be found, 
but the Assyrian figure type is, for the 
most part, of a more voluptuous and 
vigorous fullness than the Egyptian. Of 
the advanced condition of the Assyrians 
in various other respects we have ample 
evidence. They understood and applied 
the arch; constructed tunnels, aqueducts, 


and drains; used the pulley, the lever, 
and the roller; engraved gems in a highly 
artistic way; understood the arts of 
inlaying, enameling, and overlaying with 
metals; manufactured porcelain, trans¬ 
parent and colored glass, and were ac¬ 
quainted with the lens; and possessed 
vases, jars, and other dishes, bronze and 
ivory ornaments, bells, gold ear-rings and 
bracelets of excellent design and work¬ 
manship. Their household furniture also 
gives a high idea of their skill and taste. 
The cities of. Nineveh, Assur, and Arbela 
had each their royal observatories, super¬ 
intended by astronomers-royal, who had 
to send in their reports to the king twice 
a month. At an early date the stars were 
numbered and named; a calendar was 
formed, in which the year was divided 
into twelve months (of thirty days each), 
called after the zodiacal signs, but as 
this division was found to be inaccurate 
an intercalary month was added every six 
years. The week was divided into seven 
days, the seventh being a day of rest; the 
day was divided into twelve periods of 
two hours each, each of these being sub¬ 
divided into, sixty minutes, and these 
again into sixty seconds. The Assyrians 
employed both the dial and the clepsydra. 
Eclipses were recorded from a very re¬ 
mote epoch, and their recurrence roughly 
determined. The principal astronomical 
work, called the Illumination of Bel, was 
inscribed on seventy tablets, and went 
through numerous editions, one of the 
latest being in the British Museum. It 
treats among other things of comets, the 
polar star, the conjunction of the sun 
and moon, and the motions of Venus and 
Mars. Much of this activity in the arts 
and sciences w*as a continuation of that 
of the Accadians of Babylonia, who had 
advanced far in astronomical and other 
studies long before the rise of the As¬ 
syrian empire. 

Assyriology, the department of knowl¬ 
edge which deals with Assyrian an¬ 
tiquities and history, is entirely a modern 
study. Until 1842 the materials for 
Assyrian history were derived from the 
Jewish records of the Old Testament and 
from such comparatively late writers as 
Herodotus and Ctesias. In 1843-46 M. 
Botta, the French consul at Mosul, made 
the first explorations at Koyunjik and 
Khorsabad, and the objects thus ob¬ 
tained were transported to the Louvre. 
In 1845 and in 1849 valuable researches 
were conducted by Mr. Layard, and sub¬ 
sequently continued by the British 
Museum trustees. Later researches were 
instituted by the proprietors of the Daily 
Telegraph , and then by the British 
government, in which Mr. George Smith 












Ast 


Asthma 


met with considerable success. Subse¬ 
quently Mr. Rassan carried on the work 
of discovery. In the decipherment and 
translation of the cuneiform inscriptions 
among the most distinguished names are 
those of Sir Henry Rawlinson, Mr. H. 
Fox Talbot, Mr. George Smith, M. Jules 
Oppert, Dr. Schrader, Dr. Hincks, Rev. 
A. H. Sayce, Mr. Le Page Renouf, Prof. 
Terrien de la Couperie, Mr. Boscawen, 
Mr. Pinches, Prof. Hilprecht, and Dr. 
Peters. 

A g-f Georg Anton Friedrich, German 
> scholar and philosopher, born 
1776, died 1841. He wrote on aesthetics 
and the history of philosophy, but is 
best known as an editor of Plato, whose 
works he published with a Latin transla¬ 
tion and commentary. 

AstaCUS (as'ta-kus). See Crayfish. 

Ac+ar+p( as ' tar,te )’ a Syrian goddess, 
■ n,SLClA probably corresponding to the 
Semele of the Greeks and the Ashtaroth 
of the Hebrews, and representing the pro¬ 
ductive power of nature. She was a 
moon-goddess. Some regard her as cor¬ 
responding with Hera {Juno), and 
others with Aphrodite. See Ashtaroth. 
Acfa+ic (as-tat'ik) needle, a magnetic 
natcitiL' nee( ji e having another needle 

of the same intensity fixed parallel to it, 
the poles being reversed, so that the 
needles neutralize one another, and are 
unaffected by the earth’s magnetism: 
used in the astatic galvanometer. 

Aster ( as 't er, >> a genus of plants, 
1 natural order Composite, com¬ 
prehending several hundred species, 
mostly natives of North America, al¬ 
though others are widely distributed. 
Many are cultivated as ornamental 
plants. Asters generally flower late in 
the season, and some are hence called 
Michaelmas or Christmas Daisies. The 
China Aster ( Aster or Callistephus 
sinensis) is a very showy annual, of 
which there are many varieties. 

Asterabad'. See Astralad. 

Ac+ptiq (as-te'ri-a), a name applied 
xiaiciid to a variety of corundum, 
which displays an opalescent star of six 
rays of light when cut with certain pre¬ 
cautions ; and also to the cafs-eye, which 
consists of quartz, and is found especially 
in Ceylon. 

Aster'idae. See Asteroidea. 

Asterisk (as'ter-isk), the figure of 
. . a star, thus *, used in 

printing and writing, as a reference to 
a passage or note in the margin, or to 
fill the space when a name, or the like, 
is omitted. 


Asteroidea 

which the star-fishes belong. See Star¬ 
fishes. 

Asteroids (as'ter-oids), or Planet- 
u u oids, a numerous group 
of very small planets revolving round the 
sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupi¬ 
ter, remarkable for the eccentricity of 
their orbits and the large size of their 
angle of inclination to the ecliptic. The 
diameter of the largest is not supposed 
to exceed 450 miles, while most of the 
others are very much smaller. They 
number over 700, large numbers having 
recently been discovered by the aid of 
photography, though these are fast de¬ 
creasing. Ceres, the first of them, was 
discovered 1st January, 1801, and within 
three years more Pallas, Juno,. and 
Vesta were seen. The extraordinary 
smallness of these bodies, and their near¬ 
ness to each other, gave rise to the 
opinion that they were but the fragments 
of a planet that had formerly existed 
and had been brought to an end by 
some catastrophe. For nearly forty years 
investigations were carried on, but no 
more planets were discovered till 8th 
December, 1845, when a fifth planet in 
the same region was discovered. The 
rapid succession of discoveries that fol¬ 
lowed was for a time taken as a cor¬ 
roboration of the disruptive theory, but 
the breadth of the zone occupied makes 
the hypothesis of a shattered planet more 
than doubtful. Their mean distances from 
the sun vary between 200,000,000 and 
300,000,000 miles; the periods of revolu¬ 
tion between 1191 days (Flora) and 
2868 (Hilda). Their eccentricities and 
inclinations are on the average greater 
than those of the earth, but their total 
mass does not exceed one-fourth that 
of the earth. One of the most interest¬ 
ing of them, discovered in 1898 and 
named Eros, owes its interest to the fact 
that its nearest approach to the sun 
comes within the orbit of Mars, thus 
bringing it nearer the earth than any 
planetary body except the moon. Other 
late discoveries carry the asteroidal 
orbits beyond Jupiter, so that these 
bodies occupy an area of immense width. 

Asterolepis (js-te-rol'e-pis), a genus 
r of gigantic ganoid fishes, 
now found only in a fossil state in the 
Old Red Sandstone. From the remains 
it would seem that these fishes must 
have sometimes attained the length of 
18 or 20 feet. 

Asthma (ast'ma), difficulty of res¬ 
piration returning at in¬ 
tervals, with a. sense of stricture across 
the chest and in the lungs, a wheezing, 



Asti 


Astrakhan 


hard cough at first, but more free to¬ 
wards the close of each paroxysm, with a 
discharge of mucus, followed by a remis¬ 
sion. Asthma is essentially a spasm of 
the muscular tissue which is contained 
in the smaller bronchial tubes. It gener¬ 
ally attacks persons advanced in years, 
and seems, in some instances, to be hered¬ 
itary. The exciting causes are various 
—accumulation of blood or viscid mucus 
in the lungs, noxious vapors, a cold and 
foggy atmosphere, or a close, hot air, 
flatulence, accumulated faeces, violent pas¬ 
sions, organic diseases in the thoracic 
viscera, etc. It frequently accompanies 
hay fever. By far the most important 
part of the treatment consists in the ob¬ 
viating or removing the several exciting 
causes. It seldom proves fatal except as 
inducing dropsy, consumption, etc. 

Asti ( as ' fc ®)> a town of Northern Italy, 
province of Alessandria, 28 miles 
E. S. E. of Turin, the see of a bishop, with 
an old cathedral. In the middle ages it 
was one of the most powerful republics 
of Northern Italy. It was the birthplace 
of Alfieri, the poet, whose statue adorns 
the principal square. A favorite wine is 
produced in the neighborhood. Pop. 
18 372 

tlSTYl (as-tig'ma-tizm), a mal- 
Astlgmatism formation> congenital 

or accidental, of the lens of the eye, in 
consequence of which the individual does 
not see objects in the same plane, al¬ 
though they may really be so. It is due 
to the degree of convexity of the hori¬ 
zontal and vertical meridians being dif¬ 
ferent, so that corresponding rays, in¬ 
stead of converging into one point, meet 
at two foci. 

A of Ip (as't’l), Thomas, an English anti- 
quary, born 1734; died 1803. He 
was a trustee of the British Museum 
and keeper of the public records in the 
Tower. His chief work, The Origin and 
Progress of Writing, appeared in 1784. 
A e+n-m aia (as-tom'a-ta), one of the two 
.fiblUllidtd, groups into which the Pro¬ 
tozoa are divided with regard to the 
presence or absence of a mouth, of which 
organ the Astomata are destitute. The 
group comprises two classes, Gregarinida 
and Rhizopoda. See Stomatoda. 

Ac+rm Ma-rnvr a large English manu- 
iiston lVldllUI, facturin g town and 

parliamentary borough, just N. of Bir¬ 
mingham, with which its industries are 
connected. Pop. 75,042. 

As'tnr John Jacob, born near Hei- 
9 delberg, Germany, 1763; died 
at New York, 1848. In 1783 he emigrated 
to the United States, settled at New 
York, and became extensively engaged in 
the fur trade. In 1811 the settlement of 


Astoria, founded by him, near the mouth 
of the Columbia River, was formed to serve 
as a central depot for the fur trade be¬ 
tween the lakes and the Pacific. He sub¬ 
sequently engaged in various speculations, 
and died worth $20,000,000, leaving 
$400,000 to found the Astor Library 
in New York. This institution is now 
associated with the New York public 
library, in common with the Lenox and 
Tilden libraries. 

Acfn-rcra (as-tor'ga), a city of Spain, 
xiatuiga p rov 0 f Leon; the Asturica 

Augusta of the Romans. It figured 
prominently during the Peninsular war; 
was taken by the French after an ob¬ 
stinate defense, 1810; and retaken by the 
Spaniards, 1812. Pop. 6000. 

Acfnria (as-tor'i-a), a city of Oregon, 
naiullcl capital of Clatsop county, on 
the Columbia River, 70 miles N. w. of 
Portland. Has large salmon canning 
industries and fur trade, with shipping 
interests in grain, lumber, and flour. 
Pop. 9599. 

A c+vq Lq A (as-tra-bad'), a town of Persia, 
xlo II dudU ca pj(- a i 0 f a province of the 

same name on the Caspian. It was for¬ 
merly the residence of the Kajar princes, 
the ancestors of the present Persian 
dynasty. It is very unhealthy, and has 
been called the City of the Plague. Pop. 
estimated at from 8000 to 30,000. 

A of vcpq (as-tre'a), in Greek mythology, 
n&iiccd th0 a aU ghter 0 f Zeus and 

Themis, and goddess of justice. During 
the golden age she dwelt on earth, but on 
that age passing away she withdrew from 
the society of men and was placed among 
the stars, where she forms the constella¬ 
tion Virgo. The name was given to one 
of the asteroids, discovered in 1845. 
Acfracral (as'tra-gal), in architecture, 
xiatidgcu. a small semicircular mould¬ 
ing, with a fillet beneath it, which sur¬ 
rounds a column in the form of a ring, 
separating the shaft from the capital. 

A sfra trains (as-trag'a-lus), the upper 

xlb ll dgdi Ub boneof the footSU pp 0 r ti n g 

the tibia; the huckle, ankle, or sling bone. 
It is a strong, irregularly-shaped bone, 
and is connected with the others adjoin¬ 
ing it by powerful ligaments. 

A cf vo cr'a Inc a genus of papilionaceous 
Abllctg dlUb, plantS) herbaceous or 

shrubby, and often spiny. A. gummifer 
yields gum tragacanth. 

AcfraVhan (as-tra-han'), a Russian 
AStraKnan city> capital of govern¬ 
ment of the same name, on an elevated 
island in the Volga, about 30 miles above 
its mouth in the Caspian, communicating 
with the opposite banks of the river by 
numerous bridges. It is the seat of a 
Greek archbishop and has a large cathe- 



Astrakhan 


Astronomy 


dral, as well as places of worship for 
Mohammedans, Armenians, etc. The 
manufactures are large and increasing, 
and the fisheries (sturgeon, etc.) very 
important. It is the chief port of the 
Caspian, and has regular steam com¬ 
munication with the principal towns on 
its shores. Pop. 113,001, composed of 
various races.—The government has an 
area of S5,000 square miles. It consists 
almost entirely of two vast steppes, sepa¬ 
rated from each other by the Volga, and 
forming, for the most part, arid, sterile 
deserts. Pop. 994,775. 

A c+va Vh a-n a name given to sheep- 
21b II cLK.Ild.il, gking with a curle(1 woolly 

surface obtained from a variety of sheep 
found in Bokhara, Persia, and Syria; 
also a rough fabric with a pile in imita¬ 
tion of this. 

Astral Spirits, & 

heavenly bodies or the aerial regions. 
In the middle ages they were variously 
conceived as fallen angels, souls of de¬ 
parted men, or spirits originating in fire, 
and belonging neither to heaven, earth, 
nor hell. Paracelsus regarded them as 
demoniacal in character. 

Actrino’ent (as-trin'jent), a medicine 
Astringent contracts mucous 

membranes of the body, thereby check¬ 
ing or diminishing excessive discharges 
therefrom. The chief astringents are 
the mineral acids, alum, lime-water, 
chalk, salts of copper, zinc, iron, lead, 
silver; and among vegetables catechu, 
kino, oak-bark, and galls (containing 
tannic acid). 

Astrocarvum ( as '’t ; r6-ka , ri-um), a 

xxblil UL/dl y Lilli gemi3 of tropical 

American palms, species of which yield 
oil and valuable fiber. Tucum oil and 
tucum thread are obtained from A. 
vulgare. 

A^trnlaV&p (as'tro-lab), an instrument 
-cia n via uc formerly used for taking the 

altitude of the sun or stars, now super¬ 
seded by the quadrant and sextant. The 
name was also formerly given to an ar¬ 
millary sphere. 

AstroloP’V (as-trol'o-ji), literally, the 
1 vlu oJ science or doctrine of the 
stars. The name was formerly used as 
equivalent to astronomy, but is now 
restricted in meaning to the pseudo¬ 
science which pretends to enable men to 
judge of the effects and influences of the 
heavenly bodies on human and other 
mundane affairs, and to foretell future 
events by their situations and conjunc¬ 
tions. As usually practised the whole 
heavens, visible and invisible, were divided 
by great circles into twelve equal parts, 


called houses. As the circles were sup¬ 
posed to remain immovable every 
heavenly body passed through each of the 
twelve houses every twenty-four hours. 
The portion of the zodiac contained in 
each house was the part to which chief 
attention was paid, and the position of 
any planet was settled by its distance 
from the boundary circle of the house, 
measured on the ecliptic. The houses 
had different names and different powers, 
the first being called the house of life, the 
second the house of riches, the third of 
brethren, the sixth of marriage, the 
eighth- of death, and so on. The part of 
the heavens about to rise was called the 
ascendant , the planet within the house 
of the ascendant being lord of the ascen¬ 
dant. The different aspects of the planets 
were of great importance. To cast a 
person's nativity (or draw his horoscope) 
was to find the position of the heavens 
at the instant of his birth, which being 
done, the astrologer, who professed to 
know the various powers and influences 
possessed by the sun, the moon, and the 
planets, would predict what the course 
and termination of that person’s life 
would be. The temperament of the in¬ 
dividual was ascribed to the planet under 
which he was born, as saturnine from 
Saturn, jovial from Jupiter, mercurial 
from Mercury , etc., words which are now 
used with little thought of their original 
meaning. The virtues of herbs, germs, 
and medicines were supposed to be due 
to their ruling planets. 

Astro-nomv (as ' tron '°' mi ? from Gr - 
2lbll0ll0iny astrori} a heavenly body, 

and nomos, law) is that science which 
investigates the motions, distances, mag¬ 
nitudes, and various phenomena of the 
heavenly bodies. That part of the science 
which gives a description of the motions, 
figures, periods of revolution, and other 
phenomena of the heavenly bodies is 
called descriptive astronomy; that part 
which teaches how to observe the mo¬ 
tions, figures, periodical revolutions, dis¬ 
tances, etc., of the heavenly bodies, and 
how to use the necessary instruments, is 
called practical astronomy; and that part 
which explains the causes of their mo¬ 
tions and demonstrates the laws by 
which those causes operate is termed 
physical astronomy. Recent years have 
added two new fields of investigation 
which are full of promise for the ad¬ 
vancement of astronomical science. The 
first of these—celestial photography — 
has furnished us with invaluable light- 
pictures of the sun, moon, and other 
bodies, and has recorded the existence of 
myriads of stars, invisible even by the 
best telescopes; while the second spec - 



Astronomy 


Astronomy 


trum analysis, reveals to us a knowledge 
of the physical constituents of the uni¬ 
verse, informing us, for instance, that in 
the sun (or its atmosphere) there exist 
many of the elements familiar to us on 
the earth. It has also been applied 
to the determination of the velocity with 
which stars are approaching to, or reced¬ 
ing from, our system ; and to the measure¬ 
ment of movements taking place within 
the solar atmospheric envelopes. From 
analysis of some of the unresolved nebulae 
the inference is drawn that they are not 
star-swarms but simply cosmical vapor; 
whence a second inference results favor¬ 
able to the hypothesis of the gradual con¬ 
densation of nebulae, and the successive 
evolutions of suns and systems. 

The most remote period to which we 
can go back in tracing the history of 
astronomy refers us to a time about 
2500 b.c., when the Chinese are said to 
have recorded the simultaneous conjunc¬ 
tion of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Mer¬ 
cury with the moon. This remarkable 
phenomenon is found, by calculating 
backward, to have taken place 2460 b.c. 
Astronomy has also an undoubtedly high 
antiquity in India. In the time of Alex¬ 
ander the Great, the Babylonians had 
records of astronomical observations 
reaching back 1900 years, and had prob¬ 
ably been students of astronomy much 
earlier. They regarded comets as bodies 
traveling in extended orbits, and pre¬ 
dicted their return, were familiar with the 
length of the year, and divided it up 
into months and weeks, and the day into 
hours and minutes as now existing. The 
priests of Egypt gave astronomy a relig¬ 
ious character; but their knowledge of 
the science is testified to only by their 
ancient zodiacs and the position of their 
pyramids with relation to the cardinal 
points. Among the Greeks astronomy 
took a markedly scientific form. Thales 
of Miletus (born 639 b.C.) predicted a 
solar eclipse, and his successors held 
opinions which are in many respects in 
accordance with modern ideas. Pythag¬ 
oras (500 B.c.) is credited with promul¬ 
gating the theory that the sun is the 
center of the planetary system. Great 
progress was made in astronomy under 
the Ptolemies, and we find Timochares 
and Aristyllus employed about 300 . b.c. 
in making useful planetary observations. 
But Aristarchus of Samos (born 267 
B.c.) is said, on the authority of Archi¬ 
medes, to have far surpassed them, by 
teaching the double motion of the earth 
around its axis and around the sun. A 
hundred years later Hipparchus deter¬ 
mined more exactly the length of the 
solar year, the eccentricity of the ecliptic, 
19—1 


the procession of the equinoxes, and even 
undertook a catalogue of the stars. It 
was in the second century after Christ 
that Claudius Ptolemy, a famous mathe¬ 
matician of Pelusium in Egypt, pro¬ 
pounded the system that bears his name, 
viz., that the earth was the center of the 
universe, and that the sun, moon, and 
planets revolved around it in the fol¬ 
lowing order; nearest to the earth was 
the sphere of the moon ; then followed the 
spheres of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, 
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; then came 
the sphere of the fixed stars; these were 
succeeded by two crystalline spheres and 
an outer sphere named the primum 
motile or first motion, which last was 
again circumscribed by the caelum ern- 
pyreum, of a cubical shape, wherein 
happy souls found their abode. The 
Arabs began to make scientific astronom¬ 
ical observations about the middle of the 
eighth century, and for 400 years they 
prosecuted the science with assiduity. 
Ibn-Yunis (1000 a.d.) made important 
observations of the disturbances and ec¬ 
centricities of Jupiter and Saturn. In 
the sixteenth century Nicholas Coper¬ 
nicus, born in 1473, introduced the sys¬ 
tem that bears his name, and which 
gives to the sun the central place in the 
solar system, with the planetary bodies, 
the earth included, revolving, around it. 
This arrangement of the universe (see 
Copernicus ) came at length to be gen¬ 
erally received as a result of later re¬ 
search and on account of the simplicity 
it substituted for the complexities and 
contradictions of the theory of Ptolemy. 
The observations and calculations of 
Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer, born 
in 1546. continued over many years, were 
of the highest value, and claim for him 
the title of regenerator of practical 
astronomy. Plis assistant and pupil, 
Kepler, born in 1571, was enabled, prin¬ 
cipally by the aid he received from his 
master’s labors, to arrive at those laws 
which have made his name famous: 1. 
That the planets move, not in circular, 
but in elliptical orbits, of which the sun 
occupies a focus. 2. That the radius 
vector, or imaginary straight line joining 
the sun and any planet, moves over equal 
spaces in equal times. 3. That the 
squares of the times of the revolutions of 
the planets are as the cubes of their mean 
distances from the sun. Galileo, who 
died in 1642, advanced the science by his 
observations and by the new revelations 
he made through his possession of the 
telescope, which established the truth 
of the Copernican theory. Newton, born 
in 1642, carried physical astronomy far 
forward. Accepting Kepler’s laws as a 



Astronomy 


Aswail 


statement of the facts of planetary mo¬ 
tion he deduced from them his theory of 
gravitation. The science was enriched 
towards the close of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury by the discovery by Herschel of the 
planet Uranus and its satellites, the 
resolution of the Milky Way into myriads 
of stars, and the unraveling of the mys¬ 
tery of nebulae and of double and triple 
stars. The splendid analytical researches 
of Lalande, Lagrange, Delambre, and La¬ 
place mark the same period. The nine¬ 
teenth century opened with the discovery 
of the first four minor planets; and the 
existence of another planet (Neptune) 
more distant from the sun than Uranus, 
was, in 1845, simultaneously and inde¬ 
pendently predicted by Leverrier and 
Adams. Of late years the sun has 
attracted a number of observers, the spec¬ 
troscope and photography having been 
specially fruitful in this field of investiga¬ 
tion. From recent transit observations 
the former calculated distance of the sun 
has been corrected, and is now given as 
92,560,000 miles. An interesting recent 
discovery is that of two satellites of Mars, 
and of new, minute satellites of Saturn 
and Jupiter. Much valuable work has of 
late been accomplished in ascertaining 
the parallax of fixed stars. 

The objects with which astronomy 
has chiefly to deal are the earth, the sun, 
the moon, the planets, the fixed stars, 
comets, nebulae, and meteors. The stellar 
universe is composed of an unknown 
host of stars, many millions in number, 
the most noticeable of which have been 
formed into groups called constellations. 
The nebulae are cloud-like patches of 
light scattered all over the heavens. 
Some of them have been resolved into 
star-clusters, but many of them are ap¬ 
parently masses of incandescent gas. 
The fixed stars preserve, at least to un¬ 
aided vision, an unalterable relation to 
each other, because of their vast distance 
from the earth. The distance of only a 
few of them has been discovered, the 
nearest, Alpha Centauri, being 26 tril¬ 
lions of miles from the earth. Their 
apparent movement from east to west is 
the result of the earth’s revolution on its 
axis in twenty-four hours from west to 
east. The planets have not only an ap¬ 
parent, but also a real and proper mo¬ 
tion, since, like our earth, they revolve 
around the sun in their several orbits 
and periods. The nearest of these bodies 
to the sun—unless the hypothetical 
Vulcan really exists—is Mercury. Venus, 
the second planet from the sun, is the 
brightest and most beautiful of all the 
planets. The Earth is the first planet 
accompanied by a satellite or moon. 


Mars, the next planet, has two satel¬ 
lites, as already mentioned. Its surface 
has a variegated character, and the ex¬ 
istence of land, water, snow, and ice 
has been assumed. The Asteroids , of 
which over 700 have been observed, form 
a broad zone of small bodies circulating 
in the space between Mars and Jupiter. 
Jupiter, the largest planet of the system, 
has seven satellites, four discovered by 
Galileo, a fifth in 1892, a sixth in 1904, 
and a seventh in 1905. Saturn, with his 
ten moons, and his broad thin rings with 
edges turned towards the planet, is, 
perhaps, the most striking telescopic ob¬ 
ject in the heavens. Uranus —discovered 
by Herschel in 1781—is accompanied by 
four satellites. Neptune, the farthest 
removed from the sun, has one satellite, 
the motion of which is retrograde. Be¬ 
sides the planets, quite a number of 
comets are known to be members of the 
solar system. The physical constitution 
of these bodies is still one of the enigmas 
of astronomy. The observation of 
meteors has recently attracted much at¬ 
tention. They most frequently occur in 
the autumn, and have been supposed to 
be the d 6 bris of comets. See articles 
Earth, Sun, Moon, Planet, Comet, Stars, 
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, 
Asteroids, etc. 

Astur. See Goshawk. 


Astii no (as-to'ri-a) or The Asturias, 
xiaifUiia a spa^igh principality, now 

forming the province of Oviedo, on the 
north coast of Spain ; an Alpine region, 
with steep and jagged mountain ridges, 
valuable minerals, luxuriant grazing 
lands, and fertile, well-watered valleys. 
The hereditary prince of Spain has 
borne since 1388 the title of Prince of 
the Asturias. 


A c+va ctpc (as-ti'a-jez), last king of the 
xiaiyagca Medes? 593 . 55 s B . c<> deposed 


by Cyrus, an event which transferred the 
supremacy from the Medes to the Per¬ 


sians. 


Asuncion 


(a-sun-the-on') or Nuestra 
Senora de la Asuncion 


(English, Assumption), the chief city of 
Paraguay, on the river Paraguay, pic¬ 
turesquely situated and with good public 
buildings. It was founded in 1536 on 
the feast of the Assumption. Its trade is 
mostly in the Paraguay tea, hides, to¬ 
bacco, oranges, etc. It was taken and 
plundered by the Brazilians in 1869, and 
some of the leading buildings still remain 
in a half-ruined condition. A railway 
runs for a short distance into the in¬ 
terior. Pop. 31,719. 

Acwail ( as ' wal )> the native name for 
n&w dU the sloth-bear (Ursus labiatus ) 



Asylum 


Atchison 


of the mountains of India, an uncouth, 
unwieldy animal, with very long black 
hair, inoffensive when not attacked. Its 
usual diet consists of roots, bees’ nests, 
grubs, snails, ants, etc. Its flesh is in 
much favor as an article of food. When 
captured young it is easily tamed. 
Asvlum (a-si'lum), a sanctuary or place 
J x u of refuge, where criminals and 
debtors sheltered themselves from justice, 
and from which they could not be taken 
without sacrilege. Temples were an¬ 
ciently asylums, as were Christian 
churches in later times. (See Sanc¬ 
tuary.) The term is now usually applied 
to an institution for receiving, maintain¬ 
ing, and, so far as possible, ameliorating 
the condition, of persons laboring under 
certain bodily defects or mental mala¬ 
dies ; sometimes also a refuge for the un¬ 
fortunate. 

Acvmvnfn+p (as'im-tot), in geometry, a 
XibyilipiUte linQ which ig cont i nua ii y 

approaching a curve, but never meets it, 
however far either of them. may be pro¬ 
longed. This may be conceived as a tan¬ 
gent to a curve at an infinite distance. 

A cvn fl pfnn (a-sin^e-ton), a figure of 
Xi&ynueiuii speech by which connect¬ 
ing words are omitted; as 4 1 came, saw, 
conquered.’ 

AfooQTnci (a-ta-ka'ma), a desert region 
xl la-v/diiid Qn th e west coast of S. Ameri¬ 


ca belonging to Chile, comprised partly 
in the prov. of Atacama, partly in the 
territory of Antofagasta. It mainly con¬ 
sists of a plateau extending from Co- 
piapd northward to the river Loa, and 
lies between the Andes and the sea. It 
forms the chief mining district of Chile, 
there being here rich silver mines, while 
gold is also found, as well as argentifer¬ 
ous lead, copper, nickel, cobalt, and iron; 
with guano on the coast. In its elevated 
parts saline, borax, and nitrate deposits 
occur. The northern portion till re¬ 
cently belonged to Bolivia. The Chilean 
prov. of Atacama has an area of 28,350 
sq. miles and a pop. of 71,446. 
A+anamifp (a-ta-ka/mlt), a mineral 
Ldddiiii tc cons i s ting of a combination 

of the protoxide and chloride of copper, 
occurring abundantly in some parts of 
South America, as at Atacama, whence it 
has its name. It is worked as an ore in 
South America, and is exported to Eng¬ 
land. 

A+aTinal-na (arta-hwal'pa), the last of 
XlldllUdipd j ncas succeeded his 


father in 1529 on the throne of Quito, 
while his brother Huascar obtained the 
Kingdom of Peru. They soon made war 
against each other, when the latter was 
defeated, and his kingdom fell into the 


hands of Atahualpa. The Spaniards, tak¬ 
ing advantage of these internal disturb¬ 
ances, with Pizarro at their head, invaded 
Peru, and advanced to Atahualpa’s camp. 
Here, while Pizarro’s priest was telling 
the Inca how the pope had given Peru to 
the Spaniards, fire was opened on the un¬ 
suspecting Peruvians, Atahualpa was 
captured, and, despite the payment of a 
vast ransom in gold, was executed 
(1533). 

Afalcjirfo (at-a-lan'ta), in the Greek 
xxtaictiiid, mythology, a famous hunt¬ 
ress of Arcadia. She was to be ob¬ 
tained in marriage only by him who could 
outstrip her in a race, the consequence of 
failure being death. One of her suitors 
obtained from Aphrodite (Venus) three 
golden apples, which he threw behind him, 
one after another, as he ran. Atalanta 
stopped to pick them up, and was, not un¬ 
willingly, defeated. There was another 
Atalanta belonging to Boeotia, who can¬ 
not very well be distinguished, the same 
stories being told about both. 

Ataman. See Hetman. 


A+o'incm (at'a-vizm ; L. atdvus , an an- 
idVlain ces t or ^ i n biology, the ten¬ 
dency to reproduce the ancestral type in 
animals or plants which have become 
considerably modified by breeding or 
cultivation; the reversion of a descend¬ 
ant to some peculiarity of a more or less 
remote ancestor. 

A fa xv ( a -tak'si), Ataxia, in medicine, 
xxtaAv irregularity in the animal func¬ 
tions, or in the symptoms of a disease. 
See Locomotor ataxy. 

Afhara (at-bar'a), the most northerly 
xxtudict tributary of the Nile. It rises 

in the Abyssinian highlands, receives 
several large tributaries, and enters the 
Nile 17° 50' N. 

Atcliafalaya 

United States, an outlet of the Red 
River which strikes off before the junc¬ 
tion of that river with the Mississippi, 
flows southward, and enters the Gulf of 
Mexico by Atchafalaya Bay. Its length 
is about 220 miles, nearly all navigable. 

Atcheen'. See^lcheen. 


AfpTiiqnri (atch'is-son), a city of 
Xil/CIlloUIl Kansas> capital of Atchi _ 

son Co., on the Missouri River, 35 miles 
above Leavenworth. It is the most im¬ 
portant commercial city in the State, 
having a very large shipping trade in 
grain, flour, and livestock and an exten¬ 
sive lumber trade. It has large flour 
mills, and many other manufactures. 
Here are several collegiate institutions 



Ate 


Athanasius 


and a State soldiers’ orphans’ home. Athaliah was slain. See II Kings, viii, 
Pop. 16,429. ix, xi. 

a/4-x among the Greeks, the goddess of Athanasiail (a-tha-na'shan) Creed, 
" hate, injustice, crime, and retribu- a creed or exposition 

tion, daughter of Zeus according to of Christian, faith, supposed formerly to 
Homer, but of Eris (Strife) according have been drawn up by St. Athan- 
to Hesiod. asius, though this opinion is now gener- 

Afplpc (at'e-lez), a genus of American ally rejected, and the composition often 
iltcicb monkeys. S ee Spider-monkey. ascribed to Hilary, Bishop of Arles (about 

A+ollanctk Pa'hnlcp (a-tel-a'ne fat/u- 430). It is an explicit avowal of the 
xiLciidiict: xctuuicc j-. ca ii e d a i so doctrines of the Trinity (as opposed to 

Oscan plays), a kind of lie-ht interlude, Arianism, of which Athanasius was an 
in ancient Rome, performed not by the active opponent) and of the incarnation, 
regular actors, but by freeborn young and contains what are known as the 
Romans; it originated from Atella, a ‘ damnatory clauses,’ in which it de¬ 
city of the Oscans. dares that damnation must be the lot 

Atp^llfra (at-esh'ga; the place of fire), of those who do not believe the true and 
XHCMiga a sacr ed place of the Guebres catholic faith. It is contained in the 
or Persian fire-worshipers, on the penin- Book of Common Prayer, to be read on 
sula of Apsheron, on the w. coast of the certain occasion. 

Caspian, visited by large numbers of AthcHia/sillS ^ T -> Archbishop of Alex- 
pilgrims, who bow before the sacred ’ andria, a renowned 

flames which issue from the bituminous father of the church, born in that city 
soil. about a.d. 296, died 373. While yet a 

A fi. (at), a fortified town of Belgium, in young man he attended the council at 
L the province of Hainaut, on the Nice (325), where he gained the highest 
Dender ; it carries on weaving, dye- esteem of the fathers by the talents which 
ing, and printing of cottons. Pop. he displayed in the Arian controversy. 
(1904) 11,201. He had a great share in the decrees 

At'hn'hflqra (ath-a-bas'ka), a river, lake, passed here, and thereby drew on himself 
and former district of Cana- the hatred of the Arians. Shortly after- 
da. The Athabasca river rises on the wards he was appointed Archbishop of 
eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alexandria. The complaints and ac- 
the district of Alberta, flows in a n. e. cusations of his enemies at length induced 
direction through the district of the same the Emperor Constantine to summon him 
name, and falls into Lake Athabasca in 334 before the councils of Tyre and 
after a course of about 600 miles.— Jerusalem, when he was suspended, and 
Lake Athabasca, or Lake of the Hills, afterwards banished to Treves. The 
is about 190 miles s. s. e. of the Great death of Constantine put an end to this 
Slave Lake, with which it is connected banishment, and Constantius recalled the 
by means of the Slave River, a continua- holy patriarch. His return to Alexandria 
tion of the Peace. It is about 200 miles resembled a triumph. Deposed again in 
in length from east to west, and about 340, he was reinstated in 342. Again in 
35 miles wide at the broadest part, but 355 he was sentenced to be banished, 
gradually narrows to a point at either when he retired into those parts of the 
extremity.—The district of Athabasca, desert which were entirely uninhabited, 
formed in 1882, lay immediately E. of He was followed by a faithful servant, 
British Columbia and N. of Alberta ; area who, at the risk of his life, supplied him 
about 122,000 sq. miles. It was in 1905 with the means of subsistence. Here 
almost equally divided between the two Athanasius composed many writings, full 
new provinces of Alberta and Saskat- of eloquence, to strengthen the faith of 
chewan. Large quantities of free gold the believers or expose the falsehood of 
have been discovered on the Albert route, his enemies. When Julian the Apostate 
700 miles from Prince Albert and success- ascended the throne toleration "was pro- 
fully worked. claimed to all religions, and Athanasius 

Athaliah (ath-a-li'a), daughter of Ahab, returned to his former position at Alex- 
1 King of Israel, and wife of andria. His next controversy was with 
Joram, King of Judah. After the death the heathen subjects of Julian, who ex- 
of her son Ahaziah she opened her way cited the emperor against him, and he 
to the throne by the murder of forty-two was obliged to flee in order to save his 
princes of the royal blood. She reigned life. The death of the emperor and the 
six years; in the seventh the high-priest accession of Jovian (363) again brought 
Jehoiada placed Joash, the young son him back; but Valens becoming emperor, 
of Ahaziah, who had been secretly pre- and the Arians recovering the superiority, 
served, on the throne of his father, and he was once more compelled to flee. He 



Atheism 


Athens 


concealed himself in the tomb of his 
father, where he remained four months, 
until Valens allowed him to return. 
From this period he remained undisturbed 
in his office till he died. Of the forty- 
six years of his official life he spent 
twenty in banishment, and the greater 
part of the remainder in defending the 
Nicene Greed. His writings, which are in 
Greek, are on polemical, historical, and 
moral subjects. The polemical treat 
chiefly of the doctrines of the Trinity, the 
incarnation of Christ, and the divinity of 
the Holy Spirit. The historical ones are 
of the greatest importance for the history 
of the church. See Athanasian Greed. 
A+Ti^icm (a'the-izm ; Greek, a, priv., 
xiineibiil and Theos , God), the dis¬ 
belief of the existence of a God or 
supreme intelligent being ; the doctrine op : 
posed to theism or deism. The term has 
been often loosely used as equivalent with 
infidelity generally, with deism, with pan¬ 
theism, and with the denial of immortal¬ 
ity. 

A tliincr (ath'el-ing), a title of honor 
n. iiieimg amon g the Anglo-Saxons, 

meaning one who is of noble blood. . The 
title was gradually confined to the princes 
of the blood royal, and in the ninth and 
tenth centuries is used exclusively for 
the sons or brothers of the reigning 
king. 

Ath.eli.Ilg Edgar. See Edgar Athel- 

A+RaIyiav (ath'el-ni), formerly an is- 
xx lllciiicy j an( j j n tbe m i(j s t of fens and 

marshes, now drained and cultivated,. in 
Somersetshire, England, about 7 miles 
southeast of Bridgewater. Alfred the 
Great took refuge in it during a Danish 
invasion, and afterwards founded an 
abbey there. . „ _ 

A ^li ol ctci yi (ath'el-stan), King of Eng- 
iixneibicui land? born 895j died 941> 

succeeded his father, Edward the Elder, 
in 925. He was victorious in his wars 
with the Danes of Northumberland, and 
the Scots, by whom they were assisted. 
After a signal overthrow of his enemies 
at Brunanburgh he governed in peace and 
with great ability. 

A tli An a or Athene (a-the'na, a-the'ne), 
XlLlicna, a Q ree ij goddess, identified by 

the Romans with Minerva, the repre¬ 
sentative of the intellectual powers; the 
daughter of Zeus (Jupiter) and Metis 
(that is, wisdom or cleverness). Ac¬ 
cording to the legend, which is perhaps 
allegorical, before her birth Zeus swal¬ 
lowed her mother, and xVthena afterwards 
sprang from the head of Zeus with a 
mighty war shout and in complete armor. 
In her character of a wise and prudent 
warrior she was contrasted with the fierce 


Ares (Mars). In the wars of the giants 
she slew Pallas and Enceladus. In the 
wars of the mortals she aided and pro¬ 
tected heroes. She is also represented as 
the patroness of the arts of peace. The 
sculptor, the architect, and the painter, 
as well as the philosopher, the orator, 
and the poet, considered her their tutelar 
deity. She is also represented among the 
healing gods. In all these representations 
she is the symbol of the thinking faculty, 
the goddess of wisdom, science, and art; 
the latter, however, only in so far as in¬ 
vention and thought are comprehended. 
In the images of the goddess a manly 
gravity and an air of reflection are united 
with female beauty in her features. As 
a warrior she is represented completely 
armed, her head covered with a gold 
helmet. As the goddess of peaceful arts 
she appears in the dress of a Grecian 
matron. To her insignia belong thexEgis, 
the Gorgon’s head, the round Argive 
buckler; and the owl, the cock, the ser¬ 
pent, an olive branch, and a lance were 
sacred to her. All Attica, but particu¬ 
larly Athens, was sacred to her, and she 
had numerous temples there. Her most 
brilliant festival at Athens was the Pan- 
athenaea. 

AtkfmcPHm (ath-e-ne'um), the temple 
xxiiieiiceum Athena, or Minerva, at 

Athens, frequented by poets, learned men, 
and orators. The same name was given 
at Rome to the school which Hadrian 
established on the Capitoline Mount for 
the promotion of literary and scientific 
studies. In modern times the same name 
is given to literary clubs and establish¬ 
ments connected with the sciences. 

A Fh ph cpn c (ath-e-ne'us), a Greek rheto- 
xxLiicnccua r i c i an and grammarian, 

who lived at the end of the second and 
beginning of the third century after 
Christ, author of an encyclopedic work, 
in the form of conversation, called the 
Feast of the Learned (Deipnosophista;), 
which is a rich but ill-arranged treasure 
of historical, antiquarian, philosophical, 
grammatical, etc., knowledge. 

A "fpn a crnra Q (ath-en-ag^or-as), a Pla- 
iiinenagoidb tonic philosopher of 

Athens, a convert to Christianity, who 
wrote a Greek Apology for the Christians, 
addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aure¬ 
lius, in 177, one of the earliest that ap¬ 
peared. 

A fTi 'ati c (Gr. AthVnal , L. A thence), an- 
xx ui ci b C i en tiy the capital of Attica 

and center of Greek culture, now the 
capital of the Kingdom of Greece. It 
is situated in the central plain of Attica, 
about 4 miles from the Saronic Gulf or 
Gulf of iEgina, an arm of the xEgean Sea 
running in between the mainland and 



Athens 


Athens 


the Peloponnesus. It is said to have 
been founded about 1550 b.c. by Cecrops, 
the mythical Pelasgian hero, and to have 
borne the name Cecropia until under 



Athens, the Acropolis restored. 


Erechtheus it received the name of 
Athens, in honor of Athene. The Acrop¬ 
olis, an irregular oval crag 150 ft. high, 
with a level summit 1000 ft. long by 500 
in breadth, was the original nucleus of 
the city, which according to tradition 
was extended by Theseus when Athens 
became the head of the confederate Attic 
States. The three chief eminences near 


boundary as the sites of its chief pub¬ 
lic buildings, the city itself, however, 
afterwards taking a northerly direction. 
On the east ran the Ilissus and on the 
west the Cephissus, while to the south¬ 
west lay three harbors—Phalerum, the 
oldest and nearest; the Piraeus, the most 
important; and Munychia, the Piraean 
Acropolis. At the height of its prosper¬ 
ity the city was connected with its har¬ 
bors by three massive walls (the * long 
walls’)- The architectural development 
of Athens may be dated from the rule of 
the Pisistratids (560-510 b. c.), who are 
credited with the foundation of the huge 
temple of the Olympian Zeus, completed 
by Hadrian seven centuries later, the 
erection of the Pythium or temple of 
Pythian Apollo, and of the Lyceum or 
temple of Apollo Lyceus—all near the 
Ilissus; and to whom were due the in¬ 
closure of the Academy, a gymnasium 
and gardens to the north of the city, 
and the building of the Agora with its 
Portico or Stoa, Bouleuterium or Senate- 
house, Tholus, and Prytanium. With the 
foundation of Athenian democracy under 
Clisthenes, the Pnyx or place of public 
assembly, with its semicircular area and 
cyclopean wall, first became of impor¬ 
tance, and a commencement was made to 
the Dionysiac theater (theater of Diony¬ 
sus or Bacchus) on the south side of the 



the Acropolis—the Areopagus to the Acropolis. After the destruction wrought 
northwest, the Pnyx to the southwest, by the Persians in 480 B. c. Themistooles 
and the Museum to the south of the Pnyx reconstructed the city upon practical 
—were thus included within the city lines and with a larger area, inclosing 












Athens 


Athens 


the city in new walls 7% miles in cir¬ 
cumference, erecting the north wall of 
the Acropolis, and developing the mari¬ 
time resources of the Piraeus; while 



Plan of Acropolis, Athens. 


Cimon added to the southern fortifica¬ 
tions of the Acropolis, placed on it the 
temple of Wingless Victoria, planted the 
Agora with trees, laid out the Academy, 
and built the Theseum on an eminence 
north of the Areopagus; his brother-in- 
law, Peisianax, erecting the famous Stoa 
Poecile, a hall with walls covered with 
paintings (whence the Stoics got their 
name). Under Pericles the highest point 
of artistic development was reached. An 
Odeium was erected on the east of the 
Dionysiac theater for the recitations of 
rhapsodists and musicians; and with 
the aid of the architects Ictinus and 
Mnesicles and of the sculptor Phidias the 
work on the Acropolis was perfected. 
Covering the whole of the western end 
rose the Propylsea, of Pentelic marble and 
consisting of a central portico with two 
wings in the form of Doric temples. 
Within, to the left of the entrance, stood 
the bronze statue of Athena Promachus, 
and beyond it the Erechtheum, containing 
the statue of Athena Polias; while to the 
right, on the highest part of the Acrop¬ 
olis, was the marble Parthenon or tem¬ 
ple of Athena, the crowning glory of the 
whole. Minor statues and shrines oc¬ 
cupied the rest of the area, which was 
for the time wholly appropriated to the 
worship of the guardian deities of the 
city. In the interval between the close 
of the Peloponnesian war and the battle 
of Chseronea few additions were made. 
Then, however, the long walls and 
Piraeus, destroyed by Lysander, were re¬ 
stored by Conon, and under the orator 
Lvcurgus the Dionysiac temple was com¬ 
pleted, the Panathenaic stadium com¬ 
menced, and the choragic monuments of 
Lysicrates and Thrasyllus erected. Later 
on Ptolemy Philadelphia gave it the 
Ptolemseum near the Theseum, Attalus 
I the stoa northeast of the Agora, 
Eumenes II that near the great theater, 


and Antiochus Epiphanes carried On the 
Olympium. Under the Romans it con¬ 
tinued a flourishing city, Hadrian in the 
second century adorning it with many 
new buildings. Indeed Athens was at no 
time more splendid than under the An- 
tonines, when Pausanias visited and de¬ 
scribed it. But after a time Christian 
zeal, the attacks of barbarians, and rob¬ 
beries of collectors made sad inroads 
among the monuments. About 420 a.d. 
paganism was totally annihilated at 
Athens, and when Justinian closed even 
the schools of the philosophers, the 
reverence for buildings associated with 
the names of the ancient deities and 
heroes was lost. The Parthenon was 
turned into a church of the Virgin Mary, 
and St. George stepped into the place of 
Theseus. Finally, in 1456, the place fell 
into the hands of the Turks. The Parthe¬ 
non became a mosque, and in 1687 was 
greatly damaged by an explosion at the 
siege of Athens by the Venetians. Enough 
however, remains of it and of the neigh¬ 
boring structures to abundantly attest the 
splendor of the Acropolis; while of the 
other buildings of the city, the Theseum 
and Horologium, or Temple of the Winds, 
are admirably preserved, as also are 
the Pnyx, Panathenaic stadium, etc. 
Soon after the commencement of the war 
of liberation in 1821 the Turks surren¬ 
dered Athens, but captured it again in 
1826-27. It was then abandoned until 
1830. In 1835 it became the royal resi¬ 
dence, and made rapid progress. The 
modern city mostly lies northwards and 
eastwards from the Acropolis, and con¬ 
sists mainly of straight and well-built 
streets. Among the principal buildings 
are the royal palace, a stately building 
with a facade of Pentelic marble (com¬ 
pleted 1843), the university, the academy, 
public library, theater, and observatory. 
The university was opened in 1836, and 
has 1400 students. There are valuable 
museums, in particular the National 
Museum and that in the Polytechnic 
School, which embraces the Schliemann 
collection, etc. These are constantly be¬ 
ing added to by excavations. There are 
four foreign archaeological schools or in¬ 
stitutes, the French, German, American, 
and British. The vast stadium, or race¬ 
course, has recently been rebuilt in 
magnificent style, the material being 
Pentelic marble. In 1906 the athletic 
games of ancient Greece were resumed in 
this new stadium, including the famous 
Marathon runs. Pop. 112,000. 

A f Ti pyi q the name of many places in the 
xxLiicua, united States, the chief being 
the capital of Clarke Co., Georgia, on 
the Oconee River, 92 miles w. N. w. of 




Atherine 


Atlanta 


Augusta. It is the seat of the Univer¬ 
sity of Georgia, the State College of 
Agriculture, State Normal School and 
other educational institutions. Cotton 
is largely shipped from this place, and 
there are cotton, woolen and other mills. 
Pop. 14,913. 

A+TiArinA (ath'er-en ; Atherlna ), the 
11 incline name of a genus of small 

fishes abundant in the Mediterranean and 
caught in British waters, some of them 
being highly esteemed as food. 

Afl iPrc+miP (ath'er-ston), a town in 
AmeiblUHC Warwickshire , England, 

the reputed birthplace of the poet Dray¬ 
ton. 

A+Tiprfnn (ath'er-ton), a town of Eng- 
xiinciiun landj Lancash i r e, 13 miles 

N. w. of Manchester ; has cotton factories, 
collieries, iron-works, etc. Pop. 16,211. 
AtTiPrtrm Gertrude F v author ; born 
9 at San Francisco, California. 
Has written many novels, including 
The Doomswoman; His Fortunate Grace; 
Senator North; The Aristocrats , The 
Conqueror —this dealing with the career 
of Alexander Hamilton. 

AtTilpf™ fath'lets ; Gr. athUtai), com- 
XX line tea batants wh0 took part in the 

public games of Greece. The profession 
was an honorable one; tests of birth, posi¬ 
tion, and character were imposed, and 
crowns, statues, special privileges, and 
pensions were among the rewards of suc¬ 
cess.— Athletic sports , if they do not hold 
such an honorable position to-day as they 
did in antiquity, are still practised with 
great enthusiasm and excite the keenest 
interest in their patrons. Among them 
are running, jumping, rowing, swimming, 
cycling, cricket, baseball, football, wrest¬ 
ling, throwing the hammer, * putting ’ 
the stone, etc. 

Afhlnnp (ath-lon'), a town of Ireland, 
xxiiiiunc divided by th0 shannon into 

two parts, one in Westmeath, the other 
in Roscommon; about 76 miles west of 
Dublin. Its central position has made 
it one of the chief military depdts, and 
four railways meet. Pop. about 7,000. 
Athol ( ath,ol )> a town of Worcester Co., 
Massachusetts, 28 miles from 
Worcester. It has large manufactures 
of woolens, boots and shoes, etc. Pop. 
8,536. 

Ath'ol, or Athole, a mountainous and 
. , romantic district in the north of 
Perthshire, Scotland, giving the title 
to a duke of the Murray family. 

Athor ( a ' th 6r), Hathor, or Het-her, 
an Egyptian goddess, identified 
with Aphrodite or Venus. Her symbol 
was the cow bearing on its head the 
solar disc and hawk-feather plumes. Her 


chief temple was at Denderah. From her 
the third month of the Egyptian year de¬ 
rived its name. 

Afline (ath'os ; now Hagion Oros or 
tiiua ]tf on t e Santo, that is, Holy Moun¬ 
tain), a mountain 6700 feet high, in 
European Turkey, terminating the most 
eastern of the three peninsulas jutting 
into the Archipelago. The name, how¬ 
ever, is frequently applied to the whole 
peninsula, which is about 30 miles long 
by 5 broad. It is covered with forests, 
and plantations of olive, vine, and other 
fruit trees. Both the surface and const- 
line are irregular. The Persian fleet 
under Mardonius was wrecked here in 
439 b.c., and to avoid a similar calamity 
Xerxes caused a canal, of which traces 
pay yet be seen, to be cut through the 
isthmus that joins the peninsula to the 
mainland. On the peninsula there are 
situated about twenty monasteries and a 
multitude of hermitages, which contain 
from 6,000 to 8,000 monks and hermits 
of the order of St. Basil. The libraries 
of the monasteries are rich in literary 
treasures and manuscripts. Every nation 
belonging to the Greek Church has here 
one or more monasteries of its own, which 
are. annually visited by pilgrims. The 
various religious communities form a spe¬ 
cies of republic, paying an annual tribute 
of nearly 820,000 to the Turks, and 
governed by a synod of twenty monastic 
deputies and four presidents meeting 
weekly. The privileges which the estab¬ 
lishments enjoy they owe to Murad II, 
who. on account of their voluntary sub¬ 
mission, even before the capture of Con¬ 
stantinople, granted them his protection. 
At the present day no Mohammedan ex¬ 
cept the Aga Bostanji, who acts as an in¬ 
termediary between the monks and the 
sultan, can settle on the peninsula. The 
revenue of the community is derived from 
pilgrims, and from a considerable trade 
in amulets, rosaries, crucifixes, images, 
and wooden furniture. 


Athv a town in Ireland, county 

/ of Kildare, 37 miles southwest of 
Dublin, on the Barrow, which is here 
joined by the Grand Canal. Its chief 
trade is in corn. Pop. about 5,000. 
Atitlan (^ te'tlan), a lake and mountain 
of Central America in Guate¬ 
mala. The lake is about 24 miles long 
and 10 broad ; the mountain is an active 
volcano 12,160 ft. high. 

Atlanta ( at - Iaa 'ta), a city, capital of 
Georgia, on an elevated ridge, 
< miles s. e. of the Chattahoochee River 
it is an important railroad center- 
carries on a large trade in grain, paper, 
cotton, flour, and especially tobacco, and 
possesses flour-mills, paper-mills, iron- 



Atlantes 


Atlantic Ocean 


works, and various other manufacturing 
establishments. Here are Atlanta Uni¬ 
versity for colored male and female stu¬ 
dents, a theological college, a medical 
college, etc. Atlanta suffered severely 
during the Civil war. Important exposi¬ 
tions were held here in 1881 and 1895. 
Pop. 154,839. 

AtlanfpQ (at-lan'tes), or Telamones, in 
XAtidiiLco architecture> male figures 

used in place of columns or pilasters for 



Atlantes. 


the support of an entablature or cornice. 
Female figures, caryatides. 

A +1 on tin (at-lan'tik), capital of Cass 

Atlantic C(Xj Iowa It is the center of 

a wide agricultural region. Pop. 5,046. 

Atlantic City, ? fashionable water- 
J 7 ing place on the coast 
of New Jersey, 60 miles s. e. of Phila¬ 
delphia. Its proximity to that city and 
accessibility from New York have made 
it the most popular seaside resort in 
this country. Pop. 46,150. 

Atlantic Ocean, the ™ st e T? se ot 

’ sea lying between 


the west coasts of Europe and Africa and 
the east coasts of North and South 
America, and extending from the Arctic 
to the Antarctic Ocean ; greatest breadth, 
between the west coast of Northern 
Africa and the east coast of Florida, 
4150 miles; least breadth, between Nor¬ 
way and Greenland, 930 miles; superfi¬ 
cial extent, 25,000,000 square miles. The 
principal inlets and bays are Baffin 
and Hudson Bays, the Gulf of Mexico, 
the Caribbean Sea, the North Sea or 
German Ocean, the Bay of Biscay, the 
Mediterranean Sea, and the Gulf of 
Guinea. The principal islands north 
of the equator are Iceland, the Faroe and 
British Islands, the Azores, Canaries, and 
Cape de Verd Islands, Newfoundland, 
Cape Breton, and the West India Islands; 
and south of the equator, Ascension, St. 
Helena, and Tristan da Cunha. 

The great currents of the Atlantic are 


the Equatorial Current (divisible into 
the Main, Northern, and Southern Equa¬ 
torial Currents), the Gulf-stream, the 
North African and Guinea Current, the 
Southern Connecting Current, the South¬ 
ern Atlantic Current, the Cape Horn 
Current, Rennel’s Current, and the 
Arctic Current. The current system is 
primarily set in motion by the trade- 
winds which drive the water of the inter- 
tropical region from Africa towards the 
American coasts. The main Equatorial 
Current, passing across the Atlantic, is 
turned by the South American coast, along 
which it runs at a rate of 30 to 50 miles 
a day, till, having received part of 
the North Equatorial Current, it en¬ 
ters the Gulf of Mexico. Issuing thence 
between Florida and Cuba under the 
name of the Gulf-stream, it flows with 
a gradually expanding channel nearly 
parallel to the coast of the United States. 
It then turns northeastward into the mid- 
Atlantic, the larger proportion of it pass¬ 
ing southward to the east of the Azores 
to swell the North African and Guinea 
Current created by the northerly winds 
off the Portuguese coast. The Guinea 
Current, which takes a southerly course, 
is divided into two on arriving at the 
region of the northeast trades, part of it 
flowing east to the Bight of Biafra and 
joining the South African feeder of the 
Main Equatorial, but the larger portion 
being carried westward into the North 
Equatorial drift. Rennel’s Current, 
which is possibly a continuation of the 
Gulf-stream, enters the Bay of Biscay 
from the west, curves round its coast, 
and then turns northwest towards Cape 
Clear. The Arctic Current runs along 
the east coast of Greenland (being here 
called the Greenland Current), doubles 
Cape Farewell, and flows up towards 
Davis Strait; it then turns to the south 
along the coasts of Labrador and the 
United States, from which it separates 
the Gulf-stream by a cold band of water. 
Immense masses of ice are borne south by 
this current from the polar seas. In the 
interior of the North Atlantic there is a 
large area comparatively free from cur¬ 
rents, called the Sargasso Sea, from the 
large quantity of sea weed (of the genus 
Rarpassum) which drifts into it. A 
similar area exists in the South Atlantic. 
In the South Atlantic, the portion of 
the Equatorial Current which strikes the 
American coast below Cape St. Roque 
flows southward at the rate of from 12 
to 20 miles a day along the Brazil coast 
under the name of the Brazil Current. It 
then turns eastward and forms the South 
Connecting Current, which, on reach¬ 
ing the South African coast, turns north- 



















Atlantides 


Atmosphere 


ward into the Main and Southern Equa¬ 
torial Currents. Besides the surface cur¬ 
rents, an under current of cold water 
flows from the poles to the equator, and 
an upper current of warm water from 
the equator towards the poles. 

The greatest depth yet discovered is 
north of Porto Rico, in the West Indies, 
namely 27,360 feet. Cross-sections of 
the North Atlantic between Europe and 
America show that its bed consists of two 
great valleys lying in a north-and-south 
direction, and separated by a ridge, on 
which there is an average depth of 1600 
or 1700 fathoms, while the valleys on 
either side sink to the depth of 3000 or 
4000 fathoms. A ridge, called the 
Wyville-Thomson Ridge, with a depth 
of little more than 200 fathoms above 
it, runs from near the Butt of Lewis 
to Iceland, cutting off the colder water 
of the Arctic Ocean from the warmer 
water of the Atlantic. The South Atlan¬ 
tic, of which the greatest depth yet 
found is over 3000 fathoms, resembles 
the North Atlantic in having an elevated 
plateau or ridge in the center with a 
deep trough on either side. The salt¬ 
ness and specific gravity of the Atlantic 
gradually diminish from the tropics to 
the poles, and also from within a short 
distance of the tropics to the equator. 
In the neighborhood of the British Isles 
the salt has been stated at one-thirty- 
eighth of the weight of the water. The 
North Atlantic is the greatest highway 
of ocean traffic in the world. It is also 
a great area of submarine communication, 
by means of the telegraphic cables that 
are laid across its bed. 

A +1 a yi +i rl pc (at-lan'ti-dez), a name given 
Xlllclllliueb tQ th0 PleiadeS) which were 

fabled to be the seven daughters of Atlas 
or of his brother Hesperus. 

Atlantic (at-lan'tis), an island which, 
0 according to Plato, existed in 
the Atlantic over against the Pillars of 
Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), was the 
home of a great nation and was finally 
swallowed up by the sea. The legend has 
been accepted by some as fundamentally 
true; but others have regarded it as the 
outgrowth of some early discovery of the 
New World. 

Atlantosaurus (at-laytj-sa-rus), a 

gigantic fossil reptile, 
order Dinosauria, obtained in the upper 
Jurassic strata of the Rocky Mountains, 
attaining a length of 80 feet or more. 
Atlas, an extensive mountain system 
’ in North Africa, starting near 
Cape Nun, on the Atlantic Ocean, tra¬ 
versing Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, and 
terminating on the coast of the Medi¬ 
terranean ; divided generally into two 


parallel ranges, running w. to e., the 
Greater Atlas lying towards the Sahara 
and the Lesser Atlas towards the Mediter¬ 
ranean. The principal chain is about 
1500 miles long, and the principal peaks 
rise above or approach the line of perpet¬ 
ual congelation, Miltsin, in Morocco, being 
11,400 feet high, and another peak in 
Morocco 11,500 feet high. The highest 
elevations are perhaps over 13.000 feet. 
Silver, antimony, lead, copper, iron, etc., 
are among the minerals. The vegetation 
is chiefly European in character, except 
on the low grounds and next the desert. 
A floe in Greek mythology, the name of 
xx l d , a Titan whom Zeus condemned to 
bear the vault of heaven. The same 
name is given to a collection of maps and 
charts, and was first used by General 
Mercator in the sixteenth century, the 
figtfre of Atlas bearing the globe being 
given on the title-pages of such works. 
Aflac * n anatomy, is the name of the 
xx tida, £ rgt ver t e k r a 0 f the neck, which 

supports the head. It is connected with 

the occipital bone in such a way as to 

permit of the nodding movement of the 

head, and rests on the second vertebra or 

axis, their union allowing the head to 

turn from side to side. 

Atmirlnmpfpr (at-mi-dom/e-ter), an 
/itmiao meter instrument formeasur . 

ing the evaporation from water, ice, or 
snow. It somewhat resembles Nicholson’s 
hydrometer, being constructed so as to 
float in water and having an upright 
graduated stem, on the top of which is a 
metal pan. Water, ice, or snow is put 
into the pan, so as to sink the zero of 
the stem to a level with the cover of the 
vessel, and as evaporation goes on the 
stem rises, showing the amount of evapo¬ 
ration in grains. 

Afmnmpfpr (&t“in.bin/6-'tdr), an instru- 
nimumeiei ment for measuring the 

amount of evaporation from a moist sur¬ 
face in a given time. It is often a thin 
hollow ball of porous earthenware in 
which is inserted a graduated glass tube. 
The cavity of the ball and tube being 
filled with water and the top of the tube 
closed, the instrument is exposed to the 
free action of the air; the relative 
rapidity with which the water transuding 
through the porous substance is evap¬ 
orated is marked by the scale on the tube 
as the water sinks. 

Atmosphere Wmos-fer), primarily 
r the gaseous envelope 

which surrounds the earth; but the term 
is applied to that of any orb. The atmos¬ 
phere of the earth consists of a mass of 
gas extending to a height which has been 
variously estimated at from 45 to several 
hundred miles, possibly 500, and bearing 




Atmospheric Electricity 


Atomic 


on every part of the earth’s surface with 
a pressure of about 15 (14.73) lbs. per 
square inch. The existence of this at¬ 
mospheric pressure was first proved by 
Torricelli, who thus accounted for the 
rush of a liquid to fill a vacuum, and, 
working out the idea produced the first 
barometer. The average height of the 
mercurial column counterbalancing the 
atmospheric weight at the sea-level is a 
little less than 30 inches; but the pres¬ 
sure varies from hour to hour, and, 
roughly speaking, diminishes geometric¬ 
ally with the arithmetical increase in 
altitude. Of periodic variations there are 
two maxima of daily pressure occurring, 
when the temperature is about the mean 
of the day, and two minima, when it is 
at its highest and lowest, respectively; 
but the. problems of diurnal and seasonal 
oscillations have yet to be fully solved, 
The pressure upon the human body of 
average size is no less than 14 tons,.but 
as it is exerted equally internally and ex¬ 
ternally no inconvenience is caused by 
it. It is customary to take the atmos¬ 
pheric pressure as the standard for 
measuring other fluid pressures; thus the 
steam pressure of 30 lbs. per square 
inch on a boiler is spoken of as a pressure 
of two atmospheres. 

The atmosphere, first subjected to 
analysis by Priestley and Scheele in the 
latter part of the eighteenth century, con¬ 
sists essentially of a mixture of oxygen 
and nitrogen in the almost constant pro¬ 
portion of 20.81 volumes of oxygen to 
79.19 volumes of nitrogen, or, by weight, 
23.01 parts of oxygen to 76.99 of nitrogen. 
The gases are associated together, not as 
a chemical compound, but as a mechani¬ 
cal mixture. Upon the oxygen present 
depends the power of the atmosphere to 
support combustion and respiration, the 
nitrogen acting as a diluent to prevent 
its too energetic action. Besides these 
gases, the air contains a small but con¬ 
stant percentage of carbonic acid gas, es¬ 
sential to plant life, also variable quanti¬ 
ties of aqueous vapor and ozone, with 
minute amounts of argon and some other 
gases. 

It also has ozone, traces of ammonia, 
and, in towns, sulphuretted hydrogen and 
sulphurous acid gas. After thunder¬ 
storms, nitric acid is also observable. In 
addition to its gaseous constituents the 
atmosphere is charged with minute par¬ 
ticles of organic and inorganic matter. 

Atmospheric Electricity,^®}^ 

manifested by the atmosphere, and made 
sensibly observable in the lightning flash. 

Atmospheric Engine. f° gln i ir ' 


Atmospheric Railway, f° c c 0 a ^ 

quence of the motive power being derived 
from the expansive force of compressed 
air. The idea of thus obtaining motion 
was first suggested by the French engineer 
Papin, about 200 years ago. In 1810, and 
again in 1827, Mr. Medhurst published 
a scheme for ‘ propelling carriages 
through a close-fitting air-tight tunnel by 
forcing in air behind them’; and in 1825 
a similar project was patented by Mr. 
Vallance, of Brighton. About 1835 Mr. H. 
Pinkus, an American residing in England, 
patented a pneumatic railway. The car¬ 
riages were to travel on an open line of 
rails, along which a cast-iron tube of be¬ 
tween 3 and 4 feet diameter was to be laid, 
having a longitudinal slit from 1 to 2 
inches wide and closed by a flexible valve 
along its upper side, through which a con¬ 
nection could be formed between the 
leading carriage and a piston working 
within the tube. This method was im¬ 
proved by Messrs. Clegg and Samuda, 
who in 1840 tried some experiments on a 
portion of the West London Railway with 
sufficient success to induce the govern¬ 
ment to advance a loan to the Dublin and 
Kingstown Railway Company, for the 
construction of a pneumatic line from 
Kingstown to Dalkey. It was opened for 
passenger traffic at the end of 1843, and 
was worked for many months. The 
London and Croydon Company subse¬ 
quently obtained powers for laying down 
an atmospheric railway by the side of 
their other line from London to Croydon, 
and in experimental trips in 1845 a 
speed of 30 miles an hour was obtained 
with sixteen carriages, and of 70 miles 
with six carriages. But during the in¬ 
tense heat of the summer of 1846 the 
iron tube frequently became so hot as 
to melt the composition which sealed the 
valve, and the line had to be worked by 
locomotives. The mechanical difficulty 
of commanding a sufficient amount of 
rarefaction led to the abandonment of the 
system for railway purposes. An anal¬ 
ogous system is now in use for the con¬ 
veyance of letters and parcels in towns 
by means of tubes of moderate diameter 
laid beneath the streets. See Pneumatic 
Despatch. 

Atoll ( a ^°t the Polynesian name 

xxiuii ^ or cora i i s i an ds of the ringed 

type inclosing a lagoon in the center. 
They are found numerously in the Pa¬ 
cific in archipelagos, and are occasionally 
of large size. Suadiva Atoll is 44 miles 
by 34; Rimsky is 54 by 20. See Coral. 
Atom ip (a-tom'ik) Theory, a theory as 
11 ° to the existence and properties 
of atoms (see Atoms) ; especially, in 




Atomic 


Atonement 


chemistry, the theory accounting for 
the fact that in compound bodies the 
elements combine in certain constant pro¬ 
portions, by assuming that all bodies are 
composed of ultimate atoms, the weight 
of which is different in different kinds of 



Bird’s-eye View of an Atoll. . 


matter. It is associated with the name of 
Dalton, who systematized and extended 
the imperfect results of his predecessors. 
On its practical side the atomic theory as¬ 
serts three Laws of Combining Propor¬ 
tions: (1) The law of Constant or Defi¬ 
nite Proportions, teaching that in every 
chemical compound the nature and pro¬ 
portion of the constituent elements are 
definite and invariable; thus, water in¬ 
variably consists of 8 parts by weight of 
oxygen to 1 part by weight of hydrogen; 
(2) The Law of Combination in Multiple 
Proportions, according to which the sev¬ 
eral proportions in which one element 
unites with another invariably bear 
towards each other a simple relation; 
thus 1 part by weight of hydrogen unites 
with 8 parts by weight of oxygen to form 
water, and with 16 parts (i.e., 8X2) 
parts of oxygen to form peroxide of 
hydrogen; (3) The Law of Combination 
in Reciprocal Proportions, that the pro¬ 
portions in which two elements combine 
with a third also represent the propor¬ 
tions in which, or in some simple mul¬ 
tiple of which, they will themselves com¬ 
bine ; thus in olefiant gas hydrogen is 
present with carbon in the proportion of 
1 to 6, and in carbonic oxide oxygen is 
present with carbon in the proportion of 
8 to 6, being also the proportions in which 
hydrogen and oxygen combine with each 
other. The theory that these propor¬ 
tional numbers are, in fact, nothing else 
than the relative weights of atoms so 
far accounts for the phenomena that the 
existence of these laws might have been 
predicted by the aid of the atomic hypoth¬ 
esis long before they were actually 
discovered by analysis. In themselves, 


however, the laws do not prove the 
theory of the existence of ultimate par¬ 
ticles of matter of a certain relative 
weight; and although many chemists, 
even without expressly adopting the 
atomic theory itself, have followed Dalton 
in the use of the terms atom and atomic 
weight, in preference to proportion, com¬ 
bining proportion , equivalent, and the 
like, yet in using the word atom it should 
be held in mind that it merely denotes 
the proportions in which elements unite. 
These will remain the same whether the 
atomic hypothesis which suggested the 
employment of the term be true or false. 
Dalton supposed that the atoms of bodies 
are spherical, and invented certain sym¬ 
bols to represent the mode in which he 
conceived they might combine together. 

Atomic Weights. See Chemistry. 

Atoms W oms), according to the hy- 
v ° pothesis of some philosophers, the 
primary parts of elementary matter not 
further divisible. The principal theorists 
of antiquity upon the nature of atoms 
were Moschus of Sidon, Leucippus (510 
b.c.), Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucre¬ 
tius. These philosophers explained all 
phenomena on the theory of the existence 
of atoms possessing various properties 
and motions, and are hence sometimes 
called Atomists. Among the moderns, 
Gassendi illustrated the doctrine of 
Epicurus. Descartes formed from this 
his system of the vortices. Newton and 
Boerhaave supposed that the original 
matter consists of hard, ponderable, im¬ 
penetrable, inactive, and immutable 
particles, from the variety in the com¬ 
position of which the variety of bodies 
originates. According to Boscovich, every 
atom is an indivisible point possessing 
position, mass, and potential force or 
capacity for attraction and repulsion. 
Sir W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) recently 
offered the suggestion that atoms are 
vortices in an incompressible fluid; but 
he found this view inadmissible and the 
latest and most probable theory is that 
atoms consist of a large number of very 
minute rotating particles, known as elec¬ 
trons. Of these there are believed to be 
from 800 to 1000 in the atom of hydro¬ 
gen, the smallest known, and proportion¬ 
ate numbers in larger atoms, the electrons 
being all of one size. The theory is sus¬ 
tained by a number of suggestive facts 
and discoveries. 

AtmioTnoTif (a-ton'ment), in Christian 
xlCOliemeilL theology, the expiation of 

sin by the obedience and personal suffer¬ 
ings of Christ. The first explicit exposi¬ 
tion of the evangelical doctrine of the 





Atrato 


Attack 


atonement is ascribed to Anselm, Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury, in 1093. 

A tra in (a-tra/to), a river of S. America, 
xxLicitu in the northwest of Colombia, 

emptying itself by nine mouths into the 
Gulf of Darien; it is navigable by 
steamers of some size for 250 miles, and 
has long been the subject of schemes for 
establishing water communication be¬ 
tween the Atlantic and Pacific. 

A fra nil (a-trow'li), a town of India, N. 
ti ct uii w p r0V i nceS) Aligarh district, 

clean, -well built, and with a good trade. 
Pop. 14,374. 


Atrebates (a-treh-a-iez), ancienC in- 
habitants of that part of 
Gallia, Belgica, afterwards called Artois. 
A colony of them settled in Britain, in a 
part of Berkshire and Oxfordshire. 
Atrpk ( a_trek, )> a river of Asia, forming 
xi ti cix tlie boundary between Persia and 
the Russian Transcaspian territory, and 
flowing into the Caspian; length 250 
miles. 


Afrpn* (at'rtis), in Greek mythology, a 
xx tic us gon p e i 0 p S aT1 d Hippodamla, 

grandson of Tantalus and progenitor of 
Agamemnon. He succeeded Eurystheus, 
his father-in-law, as King of Mycenae, 
and in revenge for the seduction of his 
wife by his brother Thyestes gave a 
banquet at which the latter partook of 
the flesh of his own sons. Atreus was 
killed by iEgisthus, a son of Thyestes. 
The tragic events connected with this 
family furnished materials to some of 
the great Greek dramatists. 

A f ri -nl p v (at'ri-pleks), a genus of plants, 
xxiiipiCA. na t order Chenopodiacese. 


See Orache. 

A fvinm (a'tri-um), the entrance-hall 
II irium and most important apartment 
of a Roman house, generally ornamented 
with statues, family portraits, and other 
pictures, and forming the reception- 
room for visitors and clients. It was 
lighted by the compluyium , an opening 
in the roof, towards which the roof sloped 
so as to throw the rain-water into a cis¬ 
tern in the floor called the impluvium. 

In zoology the term is applied to the 
large chamber or ‘ cloaca * into which 
the intestine opens in the Tunicata. 

A fvn-na (at'ro-pa), the nightshade genus 
xx Li upa p] an t g> g ee Belladonna. 

A+rrmliv ( at ' r5 - fi )> a wasting of the 
xx li ujjn^y flesh due to some interference 

with the nutritive processes. It may 
arise from a variety of causes, such as 
permanent, oppressive, and exhausting 
passions, organic disease, a want. of 
proper food or of pure air, suppurations 
in important organs, copious evacuations 
of blood, saliva, semen, etc., and it is 


also sometimes produced by poisons, for 
example arsenic, mercury, lead, in miners, 
painters, gilders, etc. In old age the 
whole frame except the heart undergoes 
atrophic change, and it is of frequent oc¬ 
currence in infancy as a consequence of 
improper, unwholesome food, exposure to 
cold, damp, or impure air, etc. Single 
organs or parts of the body may be af¬ 
fected irrespective of the general state of 
nutrition; thus local atrophy may be 
superinduced by palsies, the pressure of 
tumors upon the nerves of the limbs, or 
by artificial pressure, as in the feet of 
Chinese ladies. 


A tropin, Atropine g‘^SS^ alka a 

loid obtained from the deadly nightshade 
(Atropa Belladonna). It is very pois¬ 
onous, and produces persistent dilatation 
of the pupil. 

A f (at/ro-pos), the eldest of the 
I s Fates, who cuts the thread of 


life with her shears. 

A ftp pli p (at'a-sha), a junior member of 
xx t LcU/iic ^6 diplomatic service attached 

to an embassy or legation. 

AttQpBmpnt (a-tach'ment), in law, 
IXtldCIlIIieill the taking int0 the cus¬ 
tody of the law the person or property 
of one already before the court, or of one 
whom it is sought to bring before it.— 
Attachment of person. A writ issued by 
a court of record, commanding the 
sheriff to bring before it a person who 
has been guilty of contempt of court, 
either in neglect or abuse of its process 
or of subordinate powers .—Attachment 
of property. A writ issued at the in¬ 
stitution or during the progress of an 
action, commanding the sheriff or other 
proper officer to attach the property, 
rights, credits, or effects of the defendant 
to satisfy the demands of the plaintiff. 
The laws and practice concerning the at¬ 
tachment vary in different States.—An 
attachment of privilege , in English law, 


is a process by which a man, by virtue of 
his privilege, calls another to litigate in 
that court to which he himself belongs, 
and who has the privilege to answer 


there. 

A Ha pV (a-tak'), the opening act of hos- 
xx l icu/jx ^fl t y by a f orce seeking to dis¬ 
lodge an enemy from its position. It 
is considered more advantageous to offer 
than to wait attack, even in a defensive 
war. The historic forms of attack are: 
1. The parallel: 2. The form in which 
both the wings attack and the center is 
kept back; 3. The form in which the 
center is pushed forward and the wings 
kept back: 4. The famous oblique mode, 
dating at least from Epaminondas, and 



Attainder 


Atterbury 


employed by Frederick the Great, where 
one wing advances to engage, while the 
other is kept back, and occupies the at¬ 
tention of the enemy by pretending an 
attack. Napoleon preferred to mass 
heavy columns against an enemy’s center. 
The forms of attack have changed with 
the weapons used. In the days of the 
pike heavy masses were the rule, but 
the use of the musket led to an extended 
battle-front to give effect to the fire. The 
nature of the attack depends upon the 
condition and position of the enemy, upon 
the purpose of the war, upon the time, 
place, and other circumstances. 

A+fai-nrlpr (a-tan'der), the legal con- 
AiLdinuei sequ e nC es of a sentence of 

death or outlawry pronounced against a 
person for treason or felony, the person 
being said to be attainted. It resulted 
in forfeiture of estate and ‘ corruption of 
blood,’ rendering the party incapable of 
inheriting property or transmitting it to 
heirs; but these results now no longer 
follow. Attainder is wholly unknown in 
the laws of the United States; the Con¬ 
stitution prohibits it (Art. I, Sect. 91. 
A t+cnn+ (a-tant'), a writ at common law 
xittdiiit a g a i ns t a jury for a false ver¬ 
dict, never adopted in the United States. 
Attalpa (at-a-le'a), a genus of American 
xittciicd paims, comprising the piassava 

palm, which produces coquilla-nuts. 
Attains (at'a-lus), the names of three 
xxt Ictl Ub kings of ancient Pergamus, 

241-133 B.C., the last of whom bequeathed 
his kingdom to the Romans. They wer£ 
all patrons of art and literature. 

A+tar ( a<;, * ir )> * n the East Indies, a 
1 general term for a perfume from 
flowers; in Europe generally used only 
of the attar or otto of roses, an essential 
oil made from Rosa centifolia, the hun¬ 
dred-leaved or cabbage-rose, R. damas- 
cena or damask-rose, R. moschata or 
musk-rose, etc., 100,000 roses yielding 
only 180 grains of attar. Cashmere, 
Shiraz, and Damascus are celebrated 
for its manufacture, and there are ex¬ 
tensive rose farms in the valley of Kezan- 
lik in Roumelia and at Ghazipur in 
Benares. The oil is at first greenish, but 
afterwards it presents various tints of 
green, yellow, and red. It is concrete at 
all ordinary temperatures, but becomes 
liquid about 84° Fahr. It consists of two 
substances, a hydrocarbon and an oxy¬ 
genated oil, and is frequently adulterated 
with the oils of rhodium, sandal-wood, 
and geranium, with the addition of cam¬ 
phor or spermaceti. It is used in mak¬ 
ing hair oil, in lavender water and other 
perfumes, its strength being such that a 
few drops suffice. 


a f ,, o fi nvi (a-ten'u-a-shun), in brew- 

iiiienuduon ingj the change which 

takes place in the saccharine wort during 
fermentation by the conversion of sugar 
into alcohol and carbonic acid, with dim¬ 
inution of specific gravity. 

A tfprVm (at'er-be-ri), Francis, an 
zitieiuuiy En g ]ish pr eiate, born in 

1662, and educated at Westminster and 
Oxford. In 1687 he took his degree of 
M.A., and appeared as a controversialist 
in a defense of the character of Luther, 
entitled, Considerations on the Spirit of 
Martin Luther, etc. He also assisted his 
pupil, the Hon. Mr. Boyle, in his famous 
controversy with Bentley on the Epistles 
of Phalaris. Having taken orders in 
1691 he settled in London, became chap¬ 
lain to William and Mary, preacher of 



Bishop Atterbury. 


Bridewell, and lecturer of St. Bride’s. 
Controversy was congenial to him, and 
in 1706 he commenced one with Dr. 
Wake, which lasted four years, on the 
rights, privileges, and powers of con¬ 
vocations. For this service he received 
the thanks of the lower house of con¬ 
vocation and the degree of Doctor of 
Divinity from Oxford. Soon after the 
accession of Queen Anne he was made 
Dean of Carlisle, aided in the defense of 
the famous Sacheverell, and wrote A 
Representation of the Present State of 
Religion. In 1712 he was made Dean 
of Christ Church, and in 1714 he dis¬ 
tinguished himself by his opposition to 
George I; and having entered into a 
correspondence with the Pretender’s 
party was apprehended in August, 1722, 
and committed to the Tower. Being 
banished the kingdom, he settled in 
Paris, where he chiefly occupied himself 
in study and in correspondence with men 
of letters. But even here, in 1725, he 



Attic 


Atticus 


was actively engaged in fomenting dis¬ 
content in the Scottish Highlands. He 
died in 1731, and his body was privately 
interred in Westminster Abbey. His 
sermons and letters are marked by ease 
and grace; but as a critic and a contro¬ 
versialist he is rather dexterous and 
popular than accurate and profound. 
Attic ( at/ik )> an architectural term vari- 
u ously used. An Attic base is a 
peculiar kind of base, used by the an¬ 
cient architects in the Ionic order and by 
Palladio and some others in the Doric. 
An Attic story is a low story in the upper 
part of a house rising above the main 
portion of the building. In ordinary 
language an attic is an apartment lighted 
by a window in the roof. 

Affipo (at'i-ka), a State of ancient 
11 td Greece, the capital of which, 
Athens, was once the leading city in the 
world. The territory was triangular in 
shape, with Cape Sunium (Colonna) as its 
apex and the ranges of Mounts Cithseron 
and Parnes as its base. On the north these 
ranges separated it from Boeotia; on the 
west it was bounded by Megaris and the 
Saronic Gulf; on the east by the iEgean. 
Its most marked physical divisions con¬ 
sisted of the highlands, midland district, 
and coast district, with the two famous 
plains of Eleusis and of Athens. The 
Cephissus and Ilissus, though small, 
were its chief streams; its principal hills, 
Cithaeron, Parnes, Hymettus, Pentelicus, 
and Laurium. Its soil has probably 
undergone considerable deterioration, but 
was anciently fertile in fruits, and es¬ 
pecially of the olive and fig. These are 
still cultivated as well as the vine and 
cereals, but Attica is better suited for 
pasture than tillage. According to tradi¬ 
tion the earliest inhabitants of Attica 
lived in a savage manner until the time of 
Cecrops, who came b.c. 1550, with a 
colony from Egypt, taught them all the 
essentials of civilization, and founded 
Athens. One of Cecrops’ descendants 
founded eleven other cities in the regions 
round, and there followed a period of 
mutual hostility. To Theseus is. as¬ 
signed the honor of uniting these cities 
in a confederacy, with Athens as the 
capital, thus forming the Attic State. 
After the death of Codrus, b.c. 1068, the 
monarchy was abolished, and the gov¬ 
ernment vested in archons elected by 
the nobility, at first for life, in 752 B.c. 
for ten years, and in 683 b.c. for one year 
only. The severe constitution of Draco 
was succeeded in 594 by the milder code 
of Solon, the democratic elements of 
which, after the brief tyranny of the 
Pisistratids were emphasized and devel¬ 
oped by Clisthenes. He divided the peo¬ 


ple into ten classes, and made the senate 
consist of 500 persons, establishing as 
the government an oligarchy modified by 
popular control. Then came the splendid 
era of the Persian war, which elevated 
Athens to the summit of fame. Miltiades 
at Marathon and Themistocles at Salamis 
conquered the Persians by land and by 
sea. The chief external danger being 
removed, the rights of the people were 
enlarged; the archons and other magis¬ 
trates were chosen from all classes with¬ 
out distinction. The period from the 
Persian war to the time of Alexander 
(b.c. 500 to 336) was most remarkable 
for the development of the Athenian con¬ 
stitution. Attica appears to have con¬ 
tained a territory of nearly 850 square 
miles, with some 500,000 inhabitants, 
360,000 of whom were slaves, while the 
inhabitants of the city numbered 180,- 
000. Cimon and Pericles (b.c. 444) 
raised Athens to its point of greatest 
splendor, though under the latter began 
the Peloponnesian war, which ended 
with the conquest of Athens by the 
Lacedaemonians. The succeeding tyranny 
of the Thirty, under the protection of a 
Spartan garrison, was overthrown by 
Thrasybulus, with a temporary partial 
restoration of the power of Athens; but 
the battle of Cheronaea (b.c. 338) made 
Attica, in common with the rest of 
Greece, a dependency of Macedon. The 
attempts at revolt after the death of 
Alexander were crushed, and in 260 b.c. 
Attica was still under the sway of An- 
tigonus Gonatas, the Macedonian king. 
A period of freedom under the shelter of 
the Achaean League then ensued, but 
their support of Mithridates led in b.c. 
146 to the subjugation of the Grecian 
States by Rome. After the division of 
the Roman Empire Attica belonged to 
the empire of the East until in a.d. 396 
it was conquered by Alaric the Goth and 
the country devastated. Attica, along 
with the ancient Boeotia, now forms a 
nome or province (Attike and Viotia) 
of the Kingdom of Greece. 

A-H-iphc (at'i-kus), Titus Pomponius, a 
xi. i Liu uo Roman of great wealth and 

culture, born 109 b.c., and died 32 b.c. 
On the death of his father he removed to 
Athens to avoid participation in the civil 
war, to which his brother Sulpicius had 
fallen a victim. There he so identified 
himself with Greek life and literature as 
to receive the surname Atticus. It was 
his principle never to mix in politics, and 
he lived undisturbed amid the strife of 
factions. Sulla and the Marian party, 
Caesar and Pompey, Brutus and Antony, 
were alike friendly to him. and he was in 
favor with Augustus. Of his close friend- 



Attila 


Attorney-general 


ship with Cicero proof is given in the 
series of letters addressed to him by 
Cicero. He married at the age of 53 and 
had one daughter, Pomponia, named by 
Cicero Atticula and Attica. He reached 
the age of seventy-seven years without 
sickness, but being then attacked by an 
incurable disease, ended his life by 
voluntary starvation. He was a type of 
the refined Epicurean, and an author of 
some contemporary repute, though none 
of his works have reached us.—The name 
Atticus was given to Addison by Pope, 
in a well-known passage (Prologue to the 
Satires addressed to Dr. Arbuthnot). 
Attiln (at'i-la; in German, Etzel ), the 
a famous leader of the Huns, was 
the son of JMundzuk, and the successor 
in conjunction with his brother Bleda, 
of his uncle Rhuas. The rule of the two 
leaders extended over a great part of 
northern Asia and Europe, and they 
threatened the Eastern Empire, and 
twice compelled the*weak Theodosius II 
to purchase an inglorious peace. Attila 
caused his brother Bleda to be murdered 
(444), and in a short time extended his 
dominion over all the peoples of Germany 
and exacted tribute from the eastern and 
western emperors. The Vandals, the 
Ostrogoths, the Gepidse, and a part of 
the Franks united under his banners, and 
he speedily formed a pretext for leading 
them against the Empire of the East. 
He laid waste all the countries from the 
Black to the Adriatic Sea, and in three 
encounters defeated the Emperor Theodo¬ 
sius, but could not take Constantinople. 
Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece all sub¬ 
mitted to the invader, who destroyed 
seventy flourishing cities; and Theodo¬ 
sius was obliged to purchase a peace. 
Turning to the west, the ‘ scourge of 
God, 1 as the universal terror termed him, 
crossed with an immense army the Rhine, 
the Moselle, and the Seine, came to the 
Loire, and laid siege to Orleans. The in¬ 
habitants of this city repelled the first 
attack, and the united forces of the Ro¬ 
mans under Aetius, and of the Visigoths 
under their king Theodoric, compelled 
Attila to raise the siege. He retreated to 
Champagne, and waited for the enemy 
i n the plains of Chalons. In apparent 
opposition to the prophecies of the sooth¬ 
sayers the ranks of the Romans and 
Goths were broken ; but when the victory 
of Attila seemed assured the Gothic 
prince Thorismond, the son of Theodoric, 
poured down from the neighboring height 
upon the Huns, who were defeated with 
great slaughter. Rather irritated than 
discouraged, he sought in the following 
year a new opportunity to seize upon 
Italy, and demanded Honoria, the sister 


of Valentinian III, in marriage, with 
half the kingdom as a dowry. When this 
demand was refused he conquered and 
destroyed Aquileia, Padua, Vicenza, 
Verona, and Bergamo, laid waste the 
plains of Lombardy, and was marching 
on Rome when Pope Leo I went with the 
Roman ambassadors to his camp and 
succeeded in obtaining a peace. Attila 
went back to Hungary, and died on the 
night of his marriage with Hilda or 
Ildico (453), either from the bursting of 
a blood-vessel or by her hand. The de¬ 
scription that Jornandes has left us of 
him is in keeping with his Ivalmuck-tar- 
tar origin. He had a large head, a flat 
nose, broad shoulders, and a short and 
ill-formed body; but his eyes were bril¬ 
liant, his walk stately, and his voice 
strong and well-toned. 

Attleborough <“ r g 0) 

Bristol county, Massachusetts, 31 miles 
s. by w. of Boston. It has water power 
and extensive manufactures of jewelry, 
clocks, buttons, and cotton goods. Pop. 
16,215. See North Attleborough. 

Aff n «lr (at'tok), a town and fort in 
R awa l Pindi district, Punjab, 
overhanging the Indus at the point where 
it is joined by the Kabul river. It is at 
the head of the steam navigation of the 
Indus, and is connected with Lahore by 
railway. It is an important post on the 
military road to the frontier. 

A ttnrn pv (at-ter-ni), a person appointed 
to do something for and in 
the stead and name of another. An at¬ 
torney may have general powers to act 
for another; or his power may be special , 
and limited to a particular act or acts. 
A special attorney is appointed by a 
deed called a power or letter of attorney , 
specifying the acts which he is authorized 
to do. An attorney at law is a person 
qualified to appear for another before a 
court of law to prosecute or defend any 
action on behalf of his client. The rules 
and . qualifications, whereby one is au¬ 
thorized to practice as an attorney in any 
court, . are very different in different 
countries, and in the different courts of 
the same country. There are various 
statutes on this subject in the laws of the 
several States, and almost every court 
has certain rules, a compliance with 
which is necessary in order to authorize 
any one to appear in court for and 
represent any party to a suit without 
special authority under seal. Women 
are now admitted as practicing attorneys. 

Attorney-general, first 

law-officer and legal adviser of the crown, 
acting on its behalf in its revenue and 



Attraction 


Anbin 


criminal proceedings, carrying on prose¬ 
cutions in crimes that have a public 
character, guarding the interests of 
charitable endowments, and granting 
patents. The solicitor-general holds a 
similar position, and may act in his place. 
In the United States the attorney-gen¬ 
eral is a member of the President’s 
cabinet and the head of the department 
of justice. The individual States have 
also attorneys-general, who have charge 
of all legal questions affecting the 
States. 

AttrantinTi (a-trak'shun), the tendency 
/iltrdCLIOII of a p material bodies, 

masses or particles to approach each 
other, to unite, and to remain united. 
It was Newton that first determined the 
laws of this apparent force, though he 
doubted the existence of any actual at¬ 
traction. When bodies tend to come 
together from sensible distances the ten¬ 
dency is termed either the attraction of 
gravitation, magnetism, or electricity, ac¬ 
cording to circumstances; when the at¬ 
traction operates at insensible distances 
it is known as adhesion with respect to 
surfaces, as cohesion with respect to the 
particles of a body, and as affinity when 
the particles of different bodies tend 
together. It is by the attraction of 
gravitation that all bodies fall to the 
earth when unsupported. Newton’s 
view, which is now held by physicists 
generally, is that this seeming force is 
due to some form of ether pressure. 

Attrek. See Atrek. 

AffriVnif a (at'ri-but), in philosophy, a 
ix i ii i u u tc q Ua ii ty or property of a 

substance, as whiteness or hardness. A 
substance is known to us only as a con¬ 
geries of attributes. 

In the fine arts an attribute is a sym¬ 
bol regularly accompanying and marking 
out some personage. Thus the caduceus, 
purse, winged hat, and sandals are at¬ 
tributes of Mercury, the trampled dragon 
of St. George. 

Attwnnri (at'wud), George, an Eng- 
.flllWUUU Hsh mathematician, born 

1745, died 1807, best known by his inven¬ 
tion, called after him Attwood's Machine, 
for verifying the laws of falling bodies. It 
consists essentially of a freely moving 
pulley over which runs a fine cord with 
two equal weights suspended from the 
ends. A small additional weight is laid 
upon one of them, causing it to descend 
with uniform acceleration. Means are 
provided by which the added weight can 
be removed at any point of the descent, 
thus allowing the motion to continue 
from this point onward with uniform 
velocity. 

20—1 


Atvs Attys (at'is), in classical mythol- 
i ogy, the shepherd lover of Cyb61e, 
who, having broken the vow of chastity 
which he made her, castrated himself. 
In Asia Minor Atys seems to have been 
a deity, with somewhat of the same char¬ 
acter as Adonis. 

A n ha crn a (o-ban-ye), a town in France, 
o c department of Bouches-du- 
Rhone, with manufactures of cottons, 
pottery, cloth. Pop. (1906) 6039. 

A n ho i n a Droit d’ (drwa do-ban). See 
Auudme, Droit # Auhaine . 

Allbe (ob), a northeastern French de¬ 
partment; area, 2351 sq. miles; 
pop. 243,670. The surface is undulating 
and watered by the Aube, etc. The n. 
and N. w. districts are bleak and infertile, 
the southern districts remarkably fertile. 
A large extent of ground is under forests 
and vineyards, and the soil is admirable 
for grain, pulse, and hemp. The chief 
manufactures are worsted and hosiery. 
Troyes is the capital.—The river Aube, 
which gives name to the department, rises 
in Haute-Marne, flows N. w., and after a 
course of 150 miles joins the Seine. 

A liTipn o c (ob-na), a town of France, 
uu Ida dep Ardeche, with a trade in 
coal, silk, etc. Pop. (1906 ) 3976. 

Aubor (° _ba ' r )> Daniel Francois Es- 
xauuci PRIT> a F renc h operatic com¬ 
poser ; born in 1782, at Caen in Nor¬ 
mandy ; died at Paris, in 1871. He was 
originally intended for a mercantile ca¬ 
reer, but devoted himself to music, study¬ 
ing under Cherubini. His first great suc¬ 
cess was his opera La Bergdre Chatelaine, 
produced in 1820. In 1822 he had asso¬ 
ciated himself with Scribe as librettist, 
and other operas now followed in quick 
succession. Chief among them were Masa - 
niello, or La Muette de Portici (1828), 
Fra Diavolo (1830), Lestocq (1834), 
L’Ambassadrice (1836), Le Domino Noir 
(1837), Les Diamants de la Conronne 
(1841), Marco Spada (1853), La Fiancee 
du Roi de Garle (1864). Despite his 
success in Masaniello, his peculiar field 
was comic opera, in which his charming 
melodies, bearing strongly the stamp of 
the French national character, his uni¬ 
form grace and piquancy, won him a high 
place. 

AnhprvilliVr*; (6-bar-vel-ya), a sub. 
iiuuei vinieib urban locality of Paris, 

with a fort belonging to the defensive 
works of the city. Pop. (1906) 33,358. 
Aubigne ^ ERLE D ’* See Merle d'Au- 

A11 hi 11 (o-bap), a town of Southern 
Auuiii France, department of Aveyron, 

20 miles N. e. of Villefranche ; mining dis¬ 
trict ; coal; sulphur, alum, and iron. 
Pop. 9973. 



Aubrey 


Auckland 


Anhrpv (ft'bre), John, an English an- 
tiquary, born in Wiltshire in 
1625 or 1626, died about 1700. He was 
educated at Oxford; collected materials 
for the Monasticon Anglicanum, and af¬ 
forded important assistance to Wood, 
the antiquary. He left large collections 
of manuscripts, which have been used 
by subsequent writers. His Miscellanies 
(London, 1696) contain much curious in¬ 
formation, but display credulity and su¬ 
perstition. His Natural History and 
Antiquities of the County of Surrey w*as 
published in 1719. 

Ailhlirn (a'burn), the name of many 
1 places in the United States, 
the chief being a city of New York, the 
capital of Cayuga Co., at the n. end of 
Owasco Lake, and 31 miles s. of Oswego. 
It is chiefly notable for its State prison, 
large enough to receive 1000 prisoners. 
In the tow r n or vicinity various manufac¬ 
tures are carried on. Pop. 34,668.—An- 


the Turks were obliged to retire with 
great loss. He died at Rhodes in 1503. 

An nil mn tv (awch'mu-ti), Richard 
xiULiimuiy Tylden, philanthropist, of 

Scottish ancestry. In the American civil 
war he was appointed adjutant-general 
of volunteers. He earned a justly de¬ 
served reputation for his philanthropic 
movement in establishing trade-schools, 
among others the New York Trade School, 
for which he donated $160,000. He died 
July 18, 1893. 

AnrVland (awk'land), a town of New 

XX uciviaiiu Zealand> in the North Is i an( i 5 

founded in 1840, and situated on Waite- 
mata Harbor, one of the finest harbors 
of New Zealand, where the island is 
only 6 miles wide, there being another 
harbor (Manukau) on the opposite side 
of the isthmus. At dead low water there 
is sufficient depth in the harbor for the 
largest steamers. The working ship chan¬ 
nel has an average depth of 36 feet, and 



other Auburn is in Maine, on the An¬ 
droscoggin river, 34 miles n. of Portland, 
a manufacturing city, capital of Andros¬ 
coggin Co. It has abundant water power, 
and manufactures of boots and shoes, cot¬ 
ton goods, and furniture. Pop. 15,064. 

Anhliqcnn (b-bii-son). a town of the 
AUUUbbUii interior of France> dep. 

Creuse, celebrated for its carpets. Pop. 
(1906) 6475. 

AiiLii ccnn (b-bii-sop), Pierre d , grand- 
AUUUbbOIl master of the Knights of St. 

John of Jerusalem, born in 1423 of a 
noble French family, served in early life 
against the Turks, then entered the order 
of St. John, obtained a commandery, was 
made grand-prior, and in 1476 succeeded 
the Grand-master Orsini. In 1480 the 
island of Rhodes, the headquarters of the 
order, was invaded by a Turkish army of 
100,000 men. The town was besieged 
for two months and then assaulted, but 


varies in width from 1 to 2 miles. The 
site is picturesque, the streets spacious, 
and the public buildings numerous and 
handsome. It has a large and increasing 
trade, there being connection with the 
chief places on the island by rail, and 
regular communication with the other 
ports of the colony, Australia, and Fiji 
by steam. It was formerly the capital. 
Pop. 37,736.—The provincial district of 
Auckland forms the northern part of 
North Island, with an area of 25,746 sq. 
miles; pop. about 150,000. The surface 
is very diversified; volcanic phenomena 
are common, including geysers, hot lakes, 
etc.; rivers are numerous; wool, timber, 
kauri-gum, etc., are exported. Much gold 
has been obtained in the Thames valley 
and elsewhere. 

A nplrl a nrl William Eden, Lord, an 
AULRidJlU, English statesman, born 

1744; educated at Eton and Oxford, 








Auckland Islands 


Audran 


called to the bar 1768, under-secretary of 
state 1772, and in 1776 lord of trade. In 
1778 he was nominated in conjunction 
with Lord Howe and others to act as a 
mediator between Britain and the insur¬ 
gent American colonies. He was after¬ 
wards secretary of State for Ireland, 
ambassador extraordinary to France, am¬ 
bassador extraordinary to the Nether¬ 
lands, etc. He was raised to the peerage 
in 1788, and died in 1814. 


Auckland Islands, ? £, r oup 

’ lands about 180 
miles s. of New Zealand, discovered in 
1806, and belonging to Britain. They are 
of volcanic origin and fertile; and the 
largest, which is 30 miles by 15, has two 
good harbors. No settled inhabitants. 

A nr>-Hrm (ak'shun), is a public sale to 
xllU/l U 1 t j ie par ty offering the highest 

price where the buyers bid upon each 
other, or to the bidder who first accepts 
the terms offered by the vendor where he 
sells by reducing his terms until some 
one accepts them. The latter form is 
known as a Dutch Auction.. A sale by 
auction must be conducted in the most 
open and public manner possible; and 
there must be no collusion on the part of 
the buyers. Puffing or mock bidding to 
raise the value by apparent competition 
is illegal. 

A npfirmppr (ak-shun-er'), a person 
ilUtllUIieei w jj 0 con( j uc t s sales by 

auction. It is his duty to state the con¬ 
ditions of sale, to declare the respective 
biddings, and to terminate the sale by 
knocking down the thing sold to the high¬ 
est bidder. In the United States gen¬ 
erally an auctioneer must have a license, 
renewable annually. Verbal declarations 
by an auctioneer are not suffered to con¬ 
trol the printed conditions of sale. 
Aucuba (a' cQ - ba )< a genus of plants, 
order Cornaceae, one species of 
which, A. Japonica, a laurel-like shrub 
with spotted leaves, a native of Japan 
and China, is now common in ornamental 
grounds in Europe. The flowers are 
dioecious and inconspicuous. For a long 
time only the female plant was cultivated, 
but latterly the male has been introduced, 
and the fruit, which consists of beautiful 
coral-red berries, is now frequently 
developed, and adds greatly to the at¬ 
tractiveness of the plant. A. himalaica, 
also brought to Europe, is less hardy. 

A n rip (<5d), a maritime department in the 
nuuc s. of France ; area,2,437 sq. miles ; 
mainly covered by hills belonging to the 
Pyrenees or the Cevennes, and traversed 
w. to e. by a valley drained by the Aude. 
The loftier districts are bleak and un¬ 
productive ; the others tolerably fertile, 
yielding good crops of grain. The wines, 


especially the white, bear a good name; 
olives and other fruits are also cultivated. 
The manufactures are varied; the trade 
is facilitated by the Canal du Midi. Car¬ 
cassonne is the capital; other towns are 
Narbonne and Castelnaudary. Pop. 
308,327.—The river Aude rises in the 
Eastern Pyrenees, and flowing nearly 
parallel to the Canal du Midi falls into the 
Mediterranean after a course of 130 miles. 

Audebert (o d - ba O, j EAN Baptiste, 
French engraver and nat¬ 
uralist, born in 1759, died in 1800; 
published Histoire Naturelle des Singes, 
des Makis, et des Galeopitheques; His¬ 
toire des Colibris, etc.; and began His¬ 
toire des Grimpereaux et des Oiseaux de 
Paradis , finished by Desray—all finely 
illustrated works. 

Audiphone (Vdi-fon), an acoustic in- 
r strument which improves 

the hearing of partly deaf persons. It 
consists essentially of a fan-shaped plate 
of hardened caoutchouc, which is bent to a 
greater or less degree by strings, and is 
very sensitive to sound-waves. When 
used the edge is pressed against the upper 
front teeth, with the convexity outward, 
and the sounds being collected are con¬ 
veyed from the teeth to the auditory 
nerve without passing through the ex¬ 
ternal ear. 

Audit an examination into ac¬ 

counts pf dealings with money 
or property, along with vouchers or other 
documents connected therewith, especially 
by proper officers, or persons appointed 
for the purpose. Also the occasion of 
receiving the rents from the tenants on 
an estate. 


Auditor (ff /dit ’ or )> in general practice, 
an officer of the court ap¬ 
pointed to state items of debit and credit 
between parties in suits when accounts 
are in question, and show balances. He 
may be appointed by courts of either law 
or equity (in the latter case called master 
or examiner), at common law in actions 
of account, and in many States, by 
special statute, in other actions. 


Auditory Nerves, see Ear. 

Anri ran (<5-drap), Gerard, a celebrated 
/xuuiciii engraver, born 1640; 

studied at Rome, was appointed engraver 
to Louis XIV; died at Paris in 1703. He 
engraved Le Brun’s Battles of Alexander, 
two of Raphael’s cartoons, Poussin’s 
Coriolanus, etc., and takes a first place 
among historical engravers. Other mem¬ 
bers of the family were successful in the 
same profession: Benoit, 1661-1721; 
Claude pere, 1592-1677; Claude fils, 
1640-84, Germain, 1631-1710; Jean, 
1667-1756. 




Audubon 


Augsburg 


Anrtnhrm (a'du-bon), John James, an 
nuuuuon American naturalist of 

French extraction, born near New Or¬ 
leans in 1780, was educated in France, 
and studied painting under David. In 
1798 he settled in Pennsylvania, but 
having a great love for ornithology he set 
out in 1810 with his wife and child, de¬ 
scended the Ohio, and for many years 
roamed the forests in every direction, 
drawing the birds which he shot. In 
1826 he went to England, exhibited his 
drawings in Liverpool, Manchester, and 
Edinburgh, and finally published them in 
an unrivaled work of double-folio size, 
with 435 colored plates of birds the size 
of life (The Birds of America, 4 vols,, 
1827-39), with an accompanying text 
(Ornithological Biography, 5 vols. 8vo, 
partly written by Prof. Macgillivray). 
On his final return to America he labored 
with Dr. Bachman on a finely illustrated 
work entitled The Quadrupeds of Amer¬ 
ica (1843-50, 3 vols.). He died at‘New 
York in 1851. 

A ii prTia r»Ti (ou'er-bah), a manufacturing 
nuci Uct '- /1A town of Germany, kingdom 
of Saxony, 18 miles s. of Zwickau. Pop. 
9574. 


A n prliQ nh Berthold, a distinguished 
Aueiucioii, German author of Jewish 
extraction, born 1812, died 1882. He 
abandoned the study of Jewish theology 
in favor of philosophy, publishing in 1836 
his Judaism and Moderfi Literature , and 
a translation of the works of Spinoza 
with critical biography (5 vols., 1841). 
His later works were tales or novels, and 
his Village Tales of the Black Forest 
(Schwarzwdlden Dorfgeschichten) as well 
as others of his writings have been trans¬ 
lated into several languages. Other 
works: Barfiissele; Joseph im Schnee; 
Edehveiss; Auf dcr Hohe; Das Landhaus 
am Rhein; Waldfried; Brigitta. 

Auerstadt “ee^. at ’ °* 

AnP*Pfl5l (&-je'as), a fabulous king of 
o Elis, in Greece, whose stable 
contained 3000 oxen, and had not been 
cleaned for thirty years. Hercules under¬ 
took to clear away the filth in one day in 
return for a tenth part of the cattle, and 
executed the task by turning the river Al- 
pheus through it. Augeas, having broken 
the bargain, was deposed and slain by 
Hercules. 


Aug*er ser), an instrument for boring 
& holes considerably larger than 
those bored by a gimlet; used by car¬ 
penters and joiners, shipwrights, etc. 

Ausrereau ( 5zh - r °X Pierre Francois 
® Charles, Duke of Castig- 

lione, Marshal of France, son of a 


mason, born at Paris in 1757. He adopted 
the life of a soldier, and by 1796 had 
reached the rank of general of division in 
the army of Italy. At Casale, Lodi, Cas- 
tiglione, and Arcole, he highly distin¬ 
guished himself. In 1797 he was at 
Paris, and was the instrument of the 
coup d'etat of the 18th Fructidor (Sept. 
4). In 1799 he was chosen a member 
of the Council of Five Hundred. He then 
obtained the command of the army in 
Holland, and fought till the end of the 
campaign. In 1803 he was appointed to 
lead the army collected at Bayonne 
against Portugal. In 1804 he was named 
marshal of the empire, and grand officer 
of the Legion of Honor. He subsequently 
took part in the battles of Jena and 
Eylau, held a command in Spain, and in 
July, 1813, led the army in Bavaria 
against Saxony, taking part in the battle 
of Leipzig. On Napoleon’s abdication he 
submitted to Louis XVIII, who named 
him a peer. He died in 1816. 

Allffier ( 5 - zhi ~ a X Emile, a noted French 
® dramatist, bornl822,came young 

to Paris, entered a lawyer’s office, but 
relinquished law for literature; elected 
an academician in 1857: in 1868 a com¬ 
mander of the Legion of Honor. His first 
and one of his best dramas was the 
comedy La Digue (1844) ; among his 
other works are L'Aventuriere, Gabrielle, 
Paul Forestier, Le Mariage d'Olympe, Le 
Gendre de M. Poirier, Les Effrontes, Le 
Fils de Gihoyer, Les Lions et les Re- 
nards, Maitre Guerin, Les Fourcham- 
bault, etc. Died in 1889. 

All site C a'Jlt), or Pyroxene, a mineral 
_ of the hornblende family, an 
essential component of many igneous 
rocks, such as basalt, greenstone, and 
porphyry. When crystallized it assumes 
the form of short, slightly rhombic prisms 
with their lateral edges replaced, and ter¬ 
minated at one or both extremities by 
numerous planes. Its specific gravity is 
from 3.19 to 3.52; luster vitreous; hard¬ 
ness sufficient to scratch glass. It has 
many varieties, diopside, sahlite, mala- 
colite, coccolite, etc., but is composed es¬ 
sentially of silica, lime, and magnesia. 
It may be imitated by the artificial fusion 
of its constituents. A transparent green 
variety found at Zillerthal, in the Tyrol, 
is used in jewelry. 

Auffsblirff (ougz'burfc; Lat. Augusta 
o o Vmdehcorum), a city of 
Bavaria, at the junction of the Wertach 
and Lech, antique in appearance, but 
some fine streets, sauares, and handsome 
or interesting buildings, including a 
splendid town-hall, a lofty belfry (Per- 
lach Tower) cathedral, with paintings 
by Domenichino, Holbein, etc.; St. 








. 











ROMAN AUGURS 

Constantine the Great condemned, under the most rigorous penalties, the occult and 
impious acts of divinations which excited the vain hopes and sometimes the criminal 
attempts of those who were discontented with their present condition. 







Augsburg Confession 


Augustine 


Ulrich’s Church; the bishop’s palace, 
where the Augsburg Confession was 
presented to the diet, now a royal resi¬ 
dence ; the Fugger Palace, or mansion of 
the celebrated Fugger family, the public 
library, the theater, the Academy of Arts, 
and the Fugger range of almshouses. 
Augsburg was a renowned commercial 
center in the middle ages, and is still an 
important emporium of South German 
and Italian trade; industries: cotton 
spinning and weaving, dyeing, woolen 
manufacture, machinery and metal goods, 
books and printing, chemicals, etc. The 
Emperor Augustus established a colony 
here about 12 b.c. In 1276 it became 
a free city, and besides being a great mart 
for the commerce between the north and 
south of Europe, it was a great center of 
German art in the middle ages. It early 
took a conspicuous part in the Reforma¬ 
tion. (See next article.) In 1806 it 
was incorporated in Bavaria. Pop. 1910, 
102,293. 

Augsburg Confession, 

presented by the Protestants at the Diet 
of Augsburg. 1530, to the Emperor 
Charles V and the diet, and being signed 
by the Protestant States was adopted as 
their creed. Luther made the original 
draught; but as its style appeared too 
violent it was given to Melanchthon for 
amendment. The original is to be found 
in the imperial Austrian archives. After¬ 
wards Melanchthon arbitrarily altered 
some of the articles, and there arose a 
division between those who held the 
original and those who held the altered 
Augsburg Confession. The former is 
received by the Lutherans, the latter by 
the German Reformed. 

Aufmrs (ff , g urs )> a b° ar d or college of 
xa ‘ u o u ' LO diviners who, among the Ro¬ 
mans, predicted future events and an¬ 
nounced the will of the gods from the oc¬ 
currence of certain signs. These con¬ 
sisted of signs in the sky, especially 
thunder and lightning; signs from the 
flight and cries of birds; from the feeding 
of the sacred chickens; from the course 
taken or sounds uttered by various quad¬ 
rupeds or by serpents; from accidents or 
occurrences, such as spilling the salt, 
sneezing, etc. The answers of the augurs 
as well as the signs by which they were 
governed were called auguries, but bird- 
predictions were properly termed aus¬ 
pices. Nothing of consequence could be 
undertaken without consulting the augurs, 
and by the mere utterance of the words 
alio die (“meet on another day”) they 
could dissolve the assembly of the people 
and annul all decrees passed at the 
meeting. 


Anprict (a'g-ust), the eighth month of 
® the year. It was the sixth 

of the Roman year, and hence was called 
Sextllis, till the Emperor Augustus 
affixed to it his own name, from the 
fact that Julius Csesar had given his 
name to the preceding month. He also 
changed its. length to 31 days from the 
same jealous motive, and thus disturbed 
the regular succession of the months in 
the Julian calendar. 

AuSTLSta (S‘S us ’ta). the name of many 
® ancient places, as Augusta 

Trevirorum, now Treves; Augusta Tau- 
rinorum, now Turin; Augusta Vindeli- 
corum, now Augsburg, etc. 

A n o*neta (ou-gps'ta), or Agos'ta, a sea- 
° port in the southeast of Sicily, 

12 miles north of Syracuse. It exports 
salt, oil, honey, etc. Pop. 15,817. 

A no’ll eta (a-gus'ta), the capital of 
ug u& id ]yf a i ne? on ^he r j ver Kenne¬ 
bec, which is crossed by a bridge and is 
navigable for small vessels. The city 
lies 44 miles from its mouth, while a 
dam enables steamboats to ply for 20 
miles further up and furnishes immense 
water-power. There are large cotton, 
pulp and paper mills, etc. Pop. 13,211. 
Ano*n eta a city of Georgia, the capital 
of Richmond county, on the 
left bank of the Savannah river, 231 
miles from its mouth and at the head of 
steamboat navigation; an important 
manufacturing center, having very great 
water-power and numerous industries, in¬ 
cluding cotton mills, machine shops, and 
railroad works, etc. Has the Medical 
College of Georgia and other institutions. 
Pop. 41,040. 

A11 fm stint* (a'gus-ten; Aurelius Au- 

xiugubiine Gl;STINUS)} gT>j arenowned 

father of the Christian Church, was born 
at Tagaste, in Africa, in 354, his mother, 
Monica, being a Christian, his father, 
Patricius, a Pagan. His parents sent him 
to Carthage to complete his education, 
but he disappointed their expectations by 
his neglect of serious study and his devo¬ 
tion to pleasure. A lost book of Cicero’s, 
called Hortensius, led him to the study of 
philosophy; but dissatisfied with this he 
went over to the Manichseans. He was 
one of their disciples for nine years, but 
left them, went to Rome, and thence to 
Milan, where he announced himself as a 
teacher of rhetoric. St. Ambrose, the 
bishop of this city, converted him to the 
faith of his boyhood, and the reading of 
Paul’s epistles wrought an entire change 
in his life and character. He retired into 
solitude, and prepared himself for bap¬ 
tism, which he received in his thirty-third 
year from the hands of Ambrose. Return¬ 
ing to Africa, he sold his estate and gave 



Augustine 


Augustus 


the proceeds to the poor, retaining only 
enough to support him. At the desire 
of the people of Hippo Augustine be¬ 
came the assistant of the bishop of that 
town, preached with extraordinary suc¬ 
cess, and in 395 succeeded to the see. 
He entered into a warm controversy with 
Pelagius concerning the doctrines of free 
will, grace, and predestination, and wrote 
treatises concerning them, but of his vari¬ 
ous works his Confessions is most secure 
of immortality. He died August 28, 
430, while Hippo was besieged by the 
Vandals. He was a man of great en¬ 
thusiasm, self-devotion, zeal for truth, 
and powerful intellect, and though there 
have been fathers of the church more 
learned, none have wielded a more power¬ 
ful influence. His writings are partly 
autobiographical (as the Confessions ), 
partly polemical, homiletic, or exegetical. 
The greatest is the City of God (De Civi - 
tate Dei), a vindication of Christianity. 
An'crncfinp or Austin, St., the .Apos- 

iiu gustme, tle the EngUshi flour _ 

ished at the close of the sixth century, 
was sent -with forty monks by Pope Gre¬ 
gory I to introduce Christianity into 
Saxon England, and was kindly received 
by Ethelbert, King of Kent, whom he con¬ 
verted, baptizing 10,000 of his subjects 
in one day. In acknowledgment of his 
tact and success Augustine received the 
archiepiscopal pall from the pope, with 
instructions to establish twelve sees in 
his province, but he could not persuade 
the British bishops in Wales to unite 
with the new English Church. He died 
in 604, or some years later. 

All Pristine (a'gus-tins), or Augus- 
TINES members of sev¬ 
eral monastic fraternities who follow rules 
framed by the great St. Augustine, or de¬ 
duced from his writings, of which the chief 
are the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, 
or Austin Canons, and the Begging Her¬ 
mits or Austin Friars. The Austin 
Canons were introduced into Britain 
about 1100, and had about 170 houses in 
England and about 25 in Scotland. They 
took the vows of chastity and poverty, 
and their habit was a long black cas¬ 
sock with a white rochet over it, having 
over that a black cloak and hood. The 
Austin Friars, originally hermits, were 
a much more austere body, went bare¬ 
footed, and formed one of the four orders 
of mendicants. An order of nuns had 
also the name of Augustines. Their gar¬ 
ments, at first black, were latterly violet. 

AugUStOWO <ow-g8s-to'vo) a town of 
° Russian Poland, govern¬ 

ment Suwalki. Pop. 13,000. 

A ll P’11 still 11 (a-gus'tu-lus), Romulus, 

iiugusxuius the last of the Western 


Roman Emperors; reigned for one year 
(475-76), when he was overthrown by 
Odoacer and banished. 

Alienist ns (a-gus'tus), Caius Julius 
xxugubtub CjESAR Octavianus, origi¬ 
nally called Caius Octavius, Roman Em¬ 
peror, was the son of Caius Octavius and 
Atia, a daughter of Julia, the sister of 
Julius Caesar. He was born 63 B.C., and 
died a.d. 14. Octavius was at Apollonia, 
in Epirus, when he received news of the 
death of his uncle (b.c. 44), who had pre¬ 
viously adopted him as his son. He re¬ 
turned to Rome to claim Caesar’s property 
and avenge his death, and now took, ac¬ 
cording to usage, his uncle’s name with 
the surname Octavianus. He was aiming 
secretly at the chief power, but at first 



The Emperor Augustus. 

he joined the republican party, and as¬ 
sisted at the defeat of Antony at Mutina. 
He got himself chosen consul in 43. Soon 
after the first triumvirate was formed 
between him and Antony and Lepidus, 
and this was followed by the conscription 
and assassination of three hundred sena¬ 
tors and two thousand knights of the 
party opposed to the triumvirate. Next 
year Octavianus and Antony defeated the 
republican army under Brutus and Cas¬ 
sius at Philippi. The victors now divided 
the Roman -world between them, Octa¬ 
vianus getting the West, Antony the 
East, and Lepidus Africa. Sextus Pom- 
peius, who had made himself formidable 
at sea, had now to be put down; and 
Lepidus, who had hitherto retained an 
appearance of power, was deprived of all 
authority (b.c. 36) and retired into pri¬ 
vate life. Antony and Octavianus now 





Augustus II 


Augustus III 


shared the empire between them; but 
while the former, in the East, gave him¬ 
self up to a life of luxury, and alienated 
the Romans by his alliance with Cleo¬ 
patra and his adoption of Oriental man¬ 
ners, Octavianus skillfully cultivated 
popularity, and soon declared war osten¬ 
sibly against the Queen of Egypt. The 
naval victory of Actium, in which the 
fleet of Antony and Cleopatra was de¬ 
feated, made Octavianus master of the 
world, b.c. 31. He returned to Rome B.c. 
20, celebrated a splendid triumph, and 
caused the temple of Janus to be closed in 
token of peace being restored. Gradually 
all the highest offices of State, civil and 
religious, were united in his hands, and 
the new title of Augustus was also as¬ 
sumed by him, being formally conferred 
by the senate in B.c. 27. Great as was 
the power given to him, he exercised it 
with wise moderation, and kept up the 
show of a republican form of government. 
Under him successful w r ars were carried 
on in Africa and Asia (against the 
Parthians), in Gaul and Spain, in Pan- 
nonia, Dalmatia, etc.; but the defeat of 
Varus by the Germans under Arminius 
w r ith the loss of three legions, a.d. 9. was 
a great blow to him in his old age.. Many 
useful decrees proceeded from him, and 
various abuses were abolished. He gave 
a new form to the senate, employed him¬ 
self in improving the morals of the people, 
enacted laws for the suppression of 
luxury, introduced discipline into the 
armies, and order into the games of the 
circus. He adorned Rome in such a man¬ 
ner that it was said, ‘ He found it of 
brick, and left it of marble.’ The people 
erected altars to him, and, by a decree 
of the senate, the month Sextilis was 
called Augustus (our August). He gave 
it 31 days, in order that July, the month 
of Julius Caesar, should not surpass it 
in length. Through this piece of vanity 
the preceding regular succession in length 
of the months was broken up. He was a 
patron of literature ; Virgil and. Horace 
were befriended by him, and their works 
and those of their contemporaries are 
the glory of the Augustan Age. His 
death, which took place at Nola, plunged 
the empire into the greatest grief. He 
was thrice married, but had no son, 
and was succeeded by his stepson Ti¬ 
berius, whose mother Livia he had mar¬ 
ried after prevailing on her husband to 
divorce her. 

A ii cf c TT (° r Frederick Augus- 
iiUgUSlUb J.J. tus I), Elector of Saxony 

and King of Poland, second son of John 
George ill, elector of Saxony, was born 
at Dresden in 1670, died at Warsaw 
in 1733. He succeeded his brother in the 


electorate in 1694, and the Polish throne 
having become vacant, in 1696, by the 
death of John Sobieski, Augustus pre¬ 
sented himself as a candidate for it and 
was successful. He joined with Peter 
the Great in the war against Charles XII 
of Sweden, invaded Livonia, but was 
defeated by Charles near Riga, and at 
Clissow, between Warsaw and Cracow. 
In 1704 he was deposed, and two years 
later, formally resigned the crown to 
Stanislaus I, now devoting himself to his 
Saxon dominions. In 1709, after the de¬ 
feat of Charles at Pultowa, the Poles re¬ 
called Augustus, who united himself anew 
with Peter. The two monarchs, in al¬ 
liance with Denmark, sent troops into 
Pomerania, but the Swedish general 
Steinbock defeated the allies at Gade- 
busch, Dec. 20, 1712. The death of 
Charles XII put an end to the war, and 
Augustus concluded a peace with Sweden. 
A confederation was now formed in 
Poland against the Saxon troops, but 
through the mediation of Peter an ar¬ 
rangement was concluded by which the 
Saxon troops were removed from the 
kingdom. Augustus now gave himself 
wholly up to voluptuousness and a life of 
pleasure. His court was one of the most 
splendid and polished in Europe. The 
Poles yielded but too readily to the ex¬ 
ample of their king, and the last years of 
his reign were characterized by boundless 
luxury and corruption of manners. His 
wife left him one son. The Countess of 
Konigsmark bore him the celebrated com¬ 
mander Marshal Saxe (Maurice of 
Saxony). 


Augustus III 


(or Frederick Augus¬ 
tus II), Elector of 


Saxony and King of Poland, son of 
Augustus II, born at Dresden in 1696, 
succeeded his father as elector in 1733, 
and was chosen King of Poland through 
the influence of Austria and Russia. He 
closely followed the example of his father, 
distinguishing himself by the splendor 
of his feasts and the extravagance of his 
court. He preferred Dresden to "Warsaw, 
and through his long absence from Poland 
the government sank into entire inactiv¬ 
ity. During the first Silesian war he 
formed a secret alliance with Austria. 
The consequence was that during the 
second Silesian war Frederick the Great 
of Prussia pushed on into Saxony, and 
occupied the capital, from which Augus¬ 
tus fled. By the peace of Dresden, Dec. 
25, 1745, he was reinstated in the posses¬ 
sion of Saxony. In 1756 he was involved 
anew in war against Prussia. When 
Frederick declined his proposal of neu¬ 
trality he left Dresden, and entered the 
camp at Pirna, where 17,000 Saxon 



Auk 


Aurangabad 


troops were assembled. Frederick sur¬ 
rounded the Saxons, who were obliged to 
surrender, and Augustus fled to Poland. 
On the threat of invasion by Russia he 
returned to Dresden, where he died in 
1763. His son, Frederick Christian, suc¬ 
ceeded him as Elector of Saxony, and 
Stanislaus Poniatowski as King of 
Poland. 

An V (awk), a name of certain swimming 
UAV birds, family Alcidse, including the 
great auk, the little auk, the puffin, etc. 
The genus Alca, or auks proper, contains 
only two species, the great auk ( Alca im- 
pennis), and the razor-bill ( Alca torda ). 
The great auk or gair-fowl, a bird about 
3 feet in length, used to be plentiful in 
northerly regions, and also visited the 
British shores, but has become extinct. 
Some seventy skins, about as many eggs, 
with bones representing perhaps a hun¬ 
dred individuals, are preserved in various 
museums. Though the largest species of 
the family, the wings were only 6 inches 
from the carpal joint to the tip, totally 
useless for flight, but employed as fins in 
swimming, especially under water. The 
tail was about 3 inches long; the beak 
was high, short, and compressed; the 
head, neck, and upper parts were black¬ 
ish ; a large spot under each eye, and 
most of the under parts white. Its legs 
were placed so far back as to cause it to 
sit nearly upright. The razorbill is about 
15 inches in length, and its wings are 
sufficiently developed to be used for 
flight. Thousands of these birds are 
killed on the coast of Labrador for their 
breast feathers, which are warm and 
elastic. 

Aulanolav » or Alleppi, a 

^xuictpuidy sea p 0r ^ on the southwest 

coast of Hindustan, Travancore, between 
the sea and a lagoon, with a safe, road¬ 
stead all the year round ; exports timber, 
coir, cocoanuts, etc. Pop. 10,000. 

Alllip (a'lik ; Lat. aula, a court or hall), 
" UAAA/ an epithet given to a council (the 
Reichshofrath) in the old German Em¬ 
pire, one of the two supreme courts of 
the German Empire, the other being the 
court of the imperial chamber ( Reich - 
shammer gericht) . It had not only con¬ 
current jurisdiction with the latter court, 
but in many cases exclusive jurisdiction, 
in all feudal processes, and in criminal 
affairs, over the immediate feudatories of 
the emperor and in affairs which con¬ 
cerned the imperial government. The 
title is now applied in Germany in a 
general sense to the chief council of any 
department, political, administrative, judi¬ 
cial, or military. 

AllliS Ca'Iis), in ancient Greece, a seaport 
in Bceotia, on the strait called Eu 


ripus, between Boeotia and Euboea. See 
Iphigenia. 

An 11aeras (ou-lya/gas), a salt lake of Bo- 
xiuiict b aa Uvia, which receives the 

surplus waters of Lake Titicaca through 
the Rio Desagualero, and has only one 
perceptible insignificant outlet, so that 
What becomes of its superfluous water is 
still a matter of uncertainty. 

A irm q 1 p (o-mal), a small French town, 
xi uiiidic department of Seine Inferieure, 

35 miles n. e. of Rouen, which has given 
titles to several notables in French his¬ 
tory.— Jean d’Arcourt, Eighth Count 
d’Aumale, fought at Agincourt, and de¬ 
feated the English at Graveile (1423).— 
Claude II, Due d’Aumai.e, one of the 
chief instigators of the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, was killed 1573.— Charles 
de Lorraine, Due d’Aumale, was an 
ardent partisan of the League in the 
politico-religious French wars of the six¬ 
teenth century.— Henri-Eugene-Philippe 
Louis d’Orleans, Due d’Aumale, son of 
Louis Philippe, king of the French, was 
born in 1822. In 1847 he succeeded Mar¬ 
shall Bugeaud as governor-general of 
Algeria, where he had distinguished him¬ 
self in the war against Abd-el-Kader. 
After the revolution of 1848 he retired 
to England; but he returned to France 
in 1871, and was elected a member of the 
assembly; became inspector-general of 
the army in 1879, and was expelled along 
with the other royal princes in 1886. He 
is author of a History of the House of 
Condi, several pamphlets, etc. Died 1897. 

AimP’P'TVlllp (fl n ser-vil), Richard, 
' tlUI1 & C1VAAAC known as Richard de 
Bury (from his birthplace Bury St. 
Edmund’s), English statesman, bibliog¬ 
rapher, and correspondent of Petrarch, 
born 1281, died 1345. He entered the 
order of Benedictine monks, and became 
tutor to the Prince of Wales, afterwards 
Edward III. Promoted to several offices 
of dignity, he ultimately became Bishop 
of Durham, and Lord-chancellor of Eng¬ 
land. During his frequent embassies to 
the continent he made the acquaintance 
of many of the eminent men of the day. 
He was a diligent collector of books, and 
formed a library at Oxford. Author of 
Philobiblon , 1473; Epistolw Familiarium, 
including letters to Petrarch, etc. 
Aivnnvr (6-nwa), Countess d’, French 
xiuiiuy wr iter, born 1650, died 1705,was 
the author of Contes des Fees (Fairy 
Tales), many of which, such as The 
White Cat, The Yellow Dwarf, etc., have 
been translated into English. She also 
wrote a number of novels, historical 
memoirs, etc. 

Aurangabad (ft-rang-ga-biid'), or Au- 

o rengabad, a town of 



Aurantiaceae 


Aurengzebe 


India, in the territory of the Nizam of 
Haidarabad, 175 miles from Bombay. It 
contains a ruined palace of Aurengzebe 
and a mausoleum erected to the memory 
of his favorite wife. It was formerly a 
considerable trading center, but its com¬ 
mercial importance decreased when 
Haidarabad became the capital of the 
Nizam. Pop. 26,165. 


Aurantiaceae (a-ran-ti-a'se-e), the 

orange tribe, a natural 
order of plants, polypetalous dicotyledons, 
with leaves containing a fragrant es¬ 
sential oil in transparent dots, and a 
superior pulpy fruit, originally natives 
of India ; examples comprise the orange, 
lemon, lime, citron, and shaddock. 


Aurav (o-ra), a seaport of northwest 
UAa «7 France, dep. Morbihan, with a 


deaf and dumb institute, and within 2 
miles of St. Anne of Auray, a famous 
place of pilgrimage. Pop. (1906) 5241. 

Anrplinn (a-re'li-an), Lucius Domi- 
nuicuan TIUg Aurelianus, Emperor 

of Rome, of humble origin, was born about 
212 a.d.. rose to the highest rank in the 
army, and on the death of Claudius II 
(270) was chosen emperor. He de¬ 
livered Italy from the barbarians (Ale- 
manni and Marcomanni), and conquered 
the famous Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. 
He followed up his victories by the ref¬ 
ormation of abuses, and the restoration 
throughout the empire of order and reg¬ 
ularity. He lost his life, a.d. 275 ? by 
assassination, when heading an expedition 
against the Persians. 

Aurelius Antoninus &nrnus)i 


Marcus, often called simply Marcus 
Aurelius, Roman 
emperor and 

philosopher, son- 
in-law, adopted 
son, and successor 
of Antoninus Pius, 
born a.d. 121, suc¬ 
ceeded to the 
throne 161, died 
180. His name 
originally was 
Marcus Annius 
Yerus. He vol¬ 
untarily shared the 
government with 
Lucius V e r u s, 
whom Antoninus 
Pius had also adopted. Brought up and 
instructed by Plutarch’s nephew, Sextus, 
the orator Herodes Atticus, and L. 
Volusius Mecianus, the jurist, he had be¬ 
come acquainted with learned men, and 
formed a particular love for the Stoic 
philosophy. A war with Parthia broke 
out in the year of his accession, and did 



not terminate till 166. A confederacy of 
the northern tribes now threatened Italy, 
while a frightful pestilence, brought from 
the East with the army, raged in Rome 
itself. Both emperors set out in person 
against the rebellious tribes. In 169 
Verus died, and the sole command of the 
war devolved on Marcus Aurelius, who 
prosecuted it with the utmost rigor, and 
nearly exterminated the, Marcomanni. 
His victory over the Quadi (174) is con¬ 
nected with a famous legend. Dion Cas¬ 
sius tells us that the twelfth legion of the 
Roman army was shut up in a defile, and 
reduced to great straits for want of water, 
when a body of Christians enrolled in 
the legion prayed for relief. Not only 
was rain sent, which enabled the Romans 
to quench their thirst, but a fierce storm 
of hail beat upon the enemy, accompanied 
by thunder and lightning, which so ter¬ 
rified them that a complete victory was 
obtained, and the legion was ever after 
called ‘ The Thundering Legion.’ After 
this victory the Marcomanni, the Quadi, 
as well as the rest of the barbarians, sued 
for peace. The sedition of the Syrian 
governor Avidius Cassius, with whom 
Faustina, the empress, was in treasonable 
communication, called off the emperor 
from his conquests, but before he reached 
Asia the rebel was assassinated. Aurelius 
returned to Rome, after visiting Egypt 
and Greece, but soon new incursions of 
the Marcomanni compelled him once more 
to take the field. He defeated the enemy 
several times, but was taken sick at 
Sirmium, and died at Vindobona (Vienna) 
in 180. His only extant work is the 
Meditations , written in Greek, and which 
has been translated into most modern 
languages. This may be regarded as a 
manual of practical morality, in which 
wisdom, gentleness, and benevolence are 
combined in the most fascinating manner. 
Many believe it to have been intended for 
the instruction of his son Commodus. 
Aurelius was one of the best emperors 
ever Rome saw, although his philosophy 
and the magnanimity of his character did 
not restrain him from the persecution of 
the Christians, whose religious doctrines 
he was led to believe were subversive of 
good government. 

An relinks Virtni* Sextus, a Roman 
xiuienus Victor, historian, who lived 

between 350 and 400. He wrote De 
Ccesaribus Historia, an extant work, and 
is the reputed author of Lives of Illustri¬ 
ous Romans, and On the Life and Charac¬ 
ter of the Emperors, both extant. 

Aureng’zebe ( ^ r f v ng ?® b; ‘ornament 
° of the throne ), one of 

the greatest of the Mogul emperors of 
Hindustan, born in 1618 or 1619. When 



Aureola 


Aurora Borealis 


he was nine years old his weak and un¬ 
fortunate father, Shah Jehan, succeeded 
to the throne. Aurengzebe was distin¬ 
guished, when a youth, for his serious 
look, his frequent prayers, his love of 
solitude, his profound hypocrisy, and his 
deep plans. In his twentieth year he 
raised a body of troops by his address and 
good fortune, and obtained the govern¬ 
ment of the Deccan. He stirred up dis¬ 
sensions between his brothers, made use 
of the assistance of one against the other, 
and finally shut his father up in his 
harem, where he kept him prisoner. He 
then murdered his relatives one after the 
other, and in 1659 ascended the throne. 
Notwithstanding the means by which he 
had got possession of power, he governed 
with much wisdom. Two of his sons, who 
endeavored to form a party in their own 
favor, he caused to be arrested and put 
to death by slow poison. He carried on 
many wars, conquered Golconda and 
Bijapur, and drove out, by degrees, the 
Mahrattas from their country. After his 
death the Mogul Empire declined. 

Aureola Aureole a're-oi), 
iiureoJd, xiuieuie in pa i nt i ngs? an 

illumination surrounding a holy person, 
as Christ, a saint, or a martyr, intended 
to represent a luminous cloud or haze 
emanating from him. It is generally of 
an oval shape, or may be nearly or quite 
circular, and is of similar character with 
the nimbus surrounding the heads of sacred 
personages. 

A nr pile (a're-us). 1. The first gold 
zxuicua coin which was coined at 

Rome, 207 b.c. Its value varied at dif¬ 
ferent times, from about $3 to $ 6 . 2. 

Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, a viru¬ 
lent pus-producing micro-organism, gen¬ 
erating a golden color. 

Anri/>V» (ou'reh), a German town, prov 
XIU.I 1 CI 1 ince 0 £ Hanover. Pop. 6013. 

Auricle (a'H-kl). See Heart. 

Anri ml a (ft-rik'u-la), a garden flower 
xi. ui uid delved from the yellow Pri¬ 
mula Auricula, found native in the Swiss 
Alps, and sometimes called bear’s-ear 
from the shape of its leaves. It has for 
centuries been an object of cultivation by 
florists, who have succeeded in raising 
from seed a great number of beautiful 
varieties. Its leaves are obovate, entire 
or serrated, and fleshy, varying, however, 
in form in the numerous varieties. The 
flowers are borne on an erect umbel and 
central scape with involucre. The orig¬ 
inal colors of the corolla are yellow, pur¬ 
ple, and variegated, and there is a mealy 
covering on the surface. 

Auricular Confession, f*ssion° n ~ 


AnrifaRpr (ow'ri-fa-bir), the Latin- 
xi uiii duel ized name Qf Johann Gold _ 

schmidt, one of Luther’s companions, born 
in 1519, became pastor at Erfurt in 1566, 
died there in 1579. He collected the un¬ 
published MSS. of Luther, and edited the 
Epistole and the Table-talk. 

Auriflamme ^mme^' See 0ri ’ 

Auriga (»' r§ 'ga)> in astronomy, the 
® Wagoner , a constellation of the 
northern hemisphere, containing sixty- 
eight stars, including Capella of the first 
magnitude. 

Aurillac (o- r e-yak), a town of France, 
^ capital of the dep. Cantai, in a 
valley watered by the Jordanne, about 
270 miles s. of Paris; contains several 
ancient buildings of note; copper works, 
paper works, manufactures of lace, tapes¬ 
try, leather, etc. Pop. (1906) 14,097. 

A n r hpTi (a'roks), a species of wild bull 
xxuiuuna Qr buffal0? the urus of Cgesar) 

bison of Pliny, the European bison, Bos 
or Bonassus Bison of modern naturalists. 
This animal was once abundant in Eu¬ 
rope, but were it not for the protection 
afforded by the Emperor of Russia to a 
few herds which inhabit a Lithuanian 
forest it would soon be totally extinct. 

Anrnrfl (a-ro'ra), a city of Keene Co., 
xi u uid Illinois> 39 m ii es w . s. w. of 

Chicago. It is an important commercial 
center, has large railway carshops and ex¬ 
tensive cotton mills, flour mills, and other 
manufactories. Pop. 29,807. 

Aurora (a-ro'ra), a city of Lawrence 
a County, Missouri, 31 miles s. w. 
of Springfield; has lead and zinc mines. 
Pop. 4148. 

A n rn'ra ( Gr -* n classical mythology, 
a the goddess of the dawn, daugh¬ 
ter of Hyperion and Theia, and sister of 
Helios and Selene (Sun and Moon). 
She was represented as a charming figure, 

‘ rosy-fingered,’ clad in a yellow robe, 
rising at dawn from the ocean and driv¬ 
ing her chariot through the heavens. 
Among the mortals whose beauty capti¬ 
vated the goddess poets mention Orion, 
Tithonus, and Cephalus. 

Anrn'ra one 011 tlie New Hebrides 
xiuiu lei ’ islands, S. Pacific Ocean, 
about 30 miles long by 5 wide. It rises 
to a considerable elevation, and is covered 
with a luxuriant vegetation. 

Anrn'ra TCnrpa'lic aluminousmete- 
21111 ° ra -BOrea IIS, oricphenomenon 

appearing in the north, most frequently 
in high latitudes, the corresponding phe¬ 
nomenon in the southern hemisphere be¬ 
ing called Aurora Australis, and both be¬ 
ing also called Polar Light, Streamers, 
etc. The northern aurora has been by far 
the most observed and studied. It usuallv 



Aurungabad 


Austerlitz 


manifests itself by streams of light as¬ 
cending towards the zenith from a dusky 
line of cloud or haze a few degrees above 
the horizon, and stretching from the north 
towards the west and east, so as to form 
an arc with its ends on the horizon, and 
its different parts and rays are constantly 
in motion. Sometimes it appears in de¬ 
tached places; at other times it covers 
almost the whole sky. It assumes many 
shapes and a variety of colors, from a 
pale red or yellow to a deep red or blood 
color; and in the northern latitudes 
serves to illuminate the earth and cheer 
the gloom of the long winter nights. 
The appearance of the aurora borealis so 
exactly resembles the effects of artificial 
electricity that there is every reason to 
believe that their causes are identical. 
When electricity passes through rarefied 
air it exhibits a diffused luminous stream 
which has all the characteristic appear¬ 
ances of the aurora, and hence it is highly 
probable that this natural phenomenon 
is occasioned by the passage of electricity 
through the upper regions of the atmos¬ 
phere. The influence of the aurora upon 
the magnetic needle is now considered as 
an ascertained fact, and the connection 
between it and magnetism is further evi¬ 
dent from the fact that the beams or cor¬ 
uscations issuing from a point in the hori¬ 
zon west of north are frequently observed 
to run in the magnetic meridian. What 
are known as magnetic storms are invari¬ 
ably connected with exhibitions of the 
aurora, and with spontaneous galvanic 
currents in the ordinary telegraph wires; 
and this connection is found to be so 
certain that, upon remarking the display 
of one of the three classes of phenomena, 
we can at once assert that the other two 
are also observable. The aurora borealis 
is said to be frequently accompanied by 
sound, which is variously described as 
resembling the rustling of pieces of 
silk against each other, or the sound of 
wind against the flame of a candle. The 
aurora of the southern hemisphere is quite 
a similar phenomenon to that of the 
north. 

Aurungabad. See Aurangabad. 

Aurungzebe. See Aurengzebe. 

A ncrmlt a firm (as-kul-ta'shun), a me- 
iiUSCUliailOn thod of distinguish¬ 
ing the state of the internal parts of the 
body, particularly of the thorax and abdo¬ 
men, by observing the sounds arising in 
the part either through the immediate ap¬ 
plication of the ear to its surface (im¬ 
mediate auscultation) or by applying the 
stethoscope to the part and listening 
through it (mediate auscultation). Aus¬ 


cultation may be used with more or less 
advantage in all cases where morbid 
sounds are produced, but its general appli¬ 
cations are : the auscultation of respira¬ 
tion, the auscultation of the voice; aus¬ 
cultation of coughs; auscultation of 
sounds foreign to all these, but sometimes 
accompanying them; auscultation of the 
actions of the heart; obstetric ausculta¬ 
tion. The parts when struck also give 
different sounds in health and disease. 

A iicnn i a (ft-so'ni-a), an ancient poetical 
xi UbOIlia name of Italy. 

An ermine (fl-so'ni-us), Decius Mag- 
xx UoUiii Uo NUS> Roman poet, born at 

Burdigala (Bordeaux) about 310 a.d., 
died about 392. Yalentinian intrusted to 
him the education of his son Gratian, and 
appointed him afterwards quaestor and 
pretorian prefect. Gratian appointed him 
consul in Gaul, and after this emperor’s 
death he lived upon an estate at Bor¬ 
deaux, devoted to literary pursuits. He 
wrote epigrams, idyls, eclogues, letters in 
verse, etc., still extant, and was probably 
a Christian. His poems have no great 
merit. 

Ahqtiipaq (as'pi-ses), among the an- 
dent Romans strictly omens 
or auguries derived from birds, though the 
term was also used in a wider sense. 
Nothing of importance was done without 
taking the auspices, which, however, 
simply showed whether the enterprise was 
likely to result successfully or not, with¬ 
out supplying any further information. 
Magistrates possessed the right of taking 
the auspices, in which they were usually 
assisted by an augur. Before a war or 
campaign a Roman general always took 
the auspices, and hence the operations 
were said to be carried out ‘ under his 
auspices.’ See Augur. 

Anccio* (ow'sig), a town in Bohemia, 
xmaaig near the junction of the Bila 
with the Elbe, 42 miles n. n. w. of 
Prague; has mines and ships much coal; 
also has large manufactures of woolens, 
chemicals, etc. Pop. 37,265. 

Anef ati (as'ten), Jane, English nove- 
-TLU&ieil l[sU born 1775> at steventon, 

in Hants, of which parish her father was 
rector. Her principal novels are, Sense 
and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice; 
Mansfield Park; and Emma. Two more 
were published after her death entitled 
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion , which 
were, however, her most early attempts. 
Her novels are marked by ease, nature, 
and a complete knowledge of the domestic 
life of the English middle classes of her 
time, and still retain their popularity. 
She died in 1817. 

A netArlif v (as'ter-litz), a town of Mo- 
ravia> 10 miles E of Brtinn> 



Austin 


Australia 


famous for the battle of the 2d of De¬ 
cember, 1805, fought between the French 
(70,000 in number) and the allied Aus¬ 
trian and Russian armies (95,000). The 
decisive victory of the French led to the 
Peace of Pressburg, between France and 
Austria. 


A no-fin (as'tin), capital of the State of 
xiu&Lin Texas< on the Co ] orado , about 

200 miles from its mouth, and accessible 
to steamboats during certain seasons. 
There is a State university and other in¬ 
stitutions, and a capitol of great size, 
built of red granite. A large dam across 
the Colorado supplies abundant power, 
and there are various manufactories. 
Pop. 29,860. 

Anc+in a capital of Mower Co., 

A us> till, Minnesota, 101 miles s. from 
St. Paul. Has a large meat-packing 
plant, brick and tile works, cement works, 
etc. Pop. 6960. 

Austin Alfred > poet-laureate of Eng- 
us Lin, lan( j . n success i on to Tennyson, 

was born at Leeds in 1835; studied at 
Stonyhurst Jesuit College and the I,on- 
don University. He was admitted to the 
bar in 1857. but since 1860 has devoted 
himself chiefly to travel and literature. 
He has published several volumes of 
poems, and in 1903 he gave to the world 
a tragedy called Flodden Field. 

Anc+in John, an English writer on 
AUdLiii, jurisprudence, born 1790, died 
1859. From 1826 to 1835 he filled the 


chair of jurisprudence at London Uni¬ 
versity. He served on several royal com¬ 
missions, one of which took him to 
Malta; lived for some years on the con¬ 
tinent. and finally settled at Weybridge 
in Surrey. His fame rests solely on his 
great works, The Province of Jurispru¬ 
dence Determined, published in 1832; 
and his Lectures on Jurisprudence, pub¬ 
lished by his widow between 1S61 and 


1863. 

Australasia <8?-tral-a'sha), a division 

of the globe usually re¬ 
garded as comprehending the islands of 
Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, New 
Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Solo¬ 
mon Islands, New Ireland, New Britain, 
the Admiralty Islands, New Guinea, and 
the Arru Islands, besides numerous other 
islands and island groups. It forms one 
of three portions into which some geog¬ 
raphers have divided Oceania, the other 
two being Malasia and Polynesia. 

Australia ; °\ der t . n , ame - 

New Holland), the larg¬ 
est island in the world, of such extent 
that it is classed as a continent, lying be¬ 
tween the Indian and Pacific Oceans, s.e. 
of Asia ; between lat. 10° 39' and 39° 11' 
s.; Ion. 113° 5' and 153° 16' e. ; greatest 


length, from w. to E., 2400 miles; greatest 
breadth, from n. to s., 1700 to 1900 
miles. It is separated from New Guinea 
on the north by Torres Strait, from Tas¬ 
mania on the south by Bass Strait. It 
is divided into two unequal parts by the 
Tropic of Capricorn, and consequently 
belongs partly to the South Temperate, 
partly to the Torrid Zone.. It is oc¬ 
cupied by five British colonies, namely, 
New South Wales, Victoria, and Queens¬ 
land in the east; South' Australia in the 
middle, stretching from sea to sea; and 
Western Australia in the west. Their 
area and population are as follows (but 
authorities differ as to the areas) :— 


New South Wales. 

Area in 
sq. m. 
310,700 

Pop. 

1,354,846 

Victoria. 

87,884 

1,201.070 

Queensland. 

668,497 

496.596 

South Australia. 

903,690 

362,604 

Western Australia.... 

975,920 

184,124 


2,946,691 

3,599,240 


Sydney, the capital of N. S.. Wales, 
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Ade¬ 
laide, the capital of S. Australia, and 
Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, are 
the chief towns. 

Although there are numerous spacious 
harbors on the coasts, there are few 
remarkable indentations; the principal 
being the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the N., 
the Great Australian Bight, and Spen¬ 
cer Gulf, on the s. The chief projec¬ 
tions are Cape York Peninsula and Arn¬ 
hem Land in the north. Parallel to the 
N. E. coast runs the Great Barrier Reef 
for 1000 miles. In great part the E. 
coast is bold and rocky, and is fringed 
with many small islands. Part of the s. 
coast is low and sandy, and part presents 
cliffs several hundred feet high. The 
N. and w. coasts are generally low, with 
some elevations at intervals. 

The interior, so far as explored, is 
largely composed of rocky tracts and 
barren plains with little or no water. 
The whole continent forms an immense 
plateau, highest in the east, low in the 
center, and with a narrow tract of land 
usually intervening between the elevated 
area and the sea. The base of the table¬ 
land is granite, which forms the surface- 
rock in a great part of the southwest, 
and is common in the higher grounds 
along the east side. Secondary (creta¬ 
ceous) and tertiary rocks are largely de¬ 
veloped in the interior. Silurian rocks 
occupy a large area in South Australia, 
on both sides of Spencer Gulf. The 
mountainous, region in the southeast and 
east is mainly composed of volcanic, 
Silurian, carbonaceous, and carboniferous 










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Australia 


Australia 


rocks yielding good coal. No active 
volcano is known to exist, but in the 
southeast there are some craters only 
recently extinct. The highest and most 
extensive mountain system is a belt about 
150 miles wide skirting the whole eastern 
and southeastern border of the conti¬ 
nent, and often called in whole or in part 
the Great Dividing Range, from forming 
the great water-shed of Australia. A 
part of it, called the Australian Alps, in 
the southeast, contains the highest sum¬ 
mits in Australia, Mount Kosciusko 
(7175 feet), Mount Clarke (7256), and 
Mount Townshend (7353). West of the 
Dividing Range are extensive plains or 
downs admirably adapted for pastoral 
purposes. The deserts and scrubs, which 
occupy large areas of the interior, are a 
characteristic feature of Australia. The 
former are destitute of vegetation, or are 
clothed only with a coarse spiny grass 
that affords no sustenance to cattle or 
horses; the latter are composed of a 
dense growth of shrubs and low trees, 
often impenetrable till the traveler has 
cleared a track with his axe. 

The rivers of Australia are nearly all 
subject to great irregularities in volume, 
many of them at one time showing a 
channel in which there is merely a series 
of pools, while at another they inundate 
the whole adjacent country. The chief is 
the Murray, which, with its affluents, the 
Murrumbidgee, Lachlan, and Darling, 
drains a great part of the interior west 
of the Dividing Range, and falls into the 
sea in the south coast (after entering 
Lake Alexandria). Its greatest tributary 
is the Darling, which may even be re¬ 
garded as the main stream. On the east 
coast are the Hunter, Clarence, Brisbane, 
Fitzroy, and Burdekin ; on the west, the 
Swan, Murchison, Gascoyne, Ashburton, 
and De Grey ; on the north, the Fitzroy, 
Victoria, Flinders, and Mitchell. The 
Australian rivers are of little service 
in facilitating internal communication. 
Many of them lose themselves in swamps 
or sandy wastes of the interior. A con¬ 
siderable river of the interior is Cooper 
Creek, or the Barcoo, which falls into 
Lake Eyre, one of a group of lakes on the 
south side of the continent having no out¬ 
let, and accordingly salt. The principal 
of these are Lakes Eyre, Torrens, and 
Gairdner, all of which vary in size and 
saltness according to the season. An¬ 
other large salt lake of little depth, Lake 
Amadeus, lies a little west of the center 
of Australia. Various others of less mag¬ 
nitude are scattered over the interior. 

The climate of Australia is generally 
hot and dry, but very healthy. In the 
tropical portions there are heavy rains, 


and in most of the coast districts there is 
a sufficiency of moisture, but in the in¬ 
terior the heat and drought are extreme. 
Considerable portions now devoted to 
pasturage are liable at times to suffer 
from drought. At Melbourne the mean 
temperature is about 56°, at Sydney 
about 63°. The southeastern settled dis¬ 
tricts are at times subject to excessively 
hot winds from the interior, which cause 
great discomfort, and are often followed 
by a violent cold wind from the south 
(‘southerly bursters’). In the moun¬ 
tainous and more temperate parts snow¬ 
storms are common in winter (June, 
July, and August). 

Australia is a region containing a vast 
quantity of mineral wealth. Foremost 
come its rich and extensive deposits of 
gold, which, since the precious metal 
was first discovered in 1851, have pro¬ 
duced a total of more than $1,500,000,000. 
The greatest quantity has been obtained 
in Victoria, but New South Wales and 
Queensland have also yielded a consider¬ 
able amount. Probably there are rich 
stores of gold as yet undiscovered. Aus¬ 
tralia also possesses silver, copper, tin, 
lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, plumbago, 
etc., in abundance, besides coal (now 
worked to a considerable extent in New 
South Wales) and iron. Various pre¬ 
cious stones are found, as the garnet, 
ruby, topaz, sapphire, and even the dia¬ 
mond. Of building stone there are 
granite, limestone, marble, and sandstone. 

The Australian flora presents peculiar¬ 
ities which mark it off by itself in a very 
decided manner. Many of its most 
striking features have an unmistakable 
relation to the general dryness of the 
climate. The trees and bushes have for 
the most part a scanty foliage, present¬ 
ing little surface for evaporation, or 
thick leathery leaves well fitted to retain 
moisture. The most widely spread types 
of Australian vegetation are the various 
kinds of gum-tree (Eucalyptus) , the 
shea-oak (Casuarina) , the acacia or 
wattle, the grass-tree (Xanthorrhcea ), 
many varieties of Proteacese, and a 
great number of ferns and tree-ferns. 
Of the gum-tree there are found upwards 
of 150 species, many of which are of 
great value. Individual specimens of the 
‘peppermint’ (E. amygdallna) have been 
found to measure from 480 to 500 feet in 
height. As timber-trees the most valu¬ 
able members of this genus are the E. 
rostrata (or red-gum), E. leucoxylon , 
and E. margindta , the timber of which is 
hard, dense, and almost indestructible. 
A number of the gum-trees have deciduous 
bark. The wattle or acacia includes 
about 300 species, some of them of con- 



Australia 


Australia 


siderable economic value, yielding good 
timber or bark for tanning. The most 
beautiful and most useful is that known 
as the golden wattle (A. dealbdta), 
which in spring is adorned with rich 
masses of fragrant yellow blossoms. 
Palms—of which there are 24 species, all 
except the cocoa-palm peculiar to Aus¬ 
tralia—are confined to the north and east 
coasts. In the ‘ scrubs ’ already men¬ 
tioned hosts of densely intertwisted 
bushes occupy extensive areas. The 
mallee scrub is formed by a species of 
dwarf eucalyptus, the mulga scrub by a 
species of thorny acacia. A plant which 
covers large areas in the arid regions is 
the spinifex or porcupine grass, a hard, 
coarse and excessively spiny plant, which 
renders traveling difficult, wounds the 
feet of horses, and is utterly uneatable 
by any animal. Other large tracts are 
occupied by herbs or bushes of a more 
valuable kind, from their affording fod¬ 
der. Foremost among those stands the 
salt-bush ( Atriplex nummularia , order 
Chenopodiacese). Beautiful flowering 
plants are numerous. Australia also 
possesses great numbers of turf-forming 
grasses, such as the kangaroo-grass 
(Anthistiria australis ), which survives 
even a tolerably protracted drought. The 
native fruit-trees are few and unimpor¬ 
tant, and the same may be said of the 
plants yielding roots used as food; but 
exotic fruits and vegetables may now be 
had in the different colonies in great 
abundance and of excellent quality. The 
vine, the olive, and mulberry thrive well, 
and quantities of wine are now produced. 
The cereals of Europe and maize are ex¬ 
tensively cultivated, and large tracts of 
country, particularly in Queensland, are 
under the sugar-cane. 

The Australian fauna is almost unique 
in its character. Its great feature is 
the nearly total absence of all the forms 
of mammalia which abound in the rest of 
the world, their place being supplied by 
a great variety of marsupials—these ani¬ 
mals being nowhere else found, except in 
the opossums of America. There are 
about 110 kinds of marsupials (of which 
the kangaroo, wombat, bandicoot, and 
phalangers or opossums, are the best- 
known varieties), over twenty kinds of 
bats, a wild dog (the dingo), and a num¬ 
ber of rats and mice. Two extraordinary 
animals, the platypus, or water-mole of 
the colonist (Ornithorhynchus), and the 
porcupine ant-eater (Echidna) constitute 
the lowest order of mammals (Monotre- 
mata), and are confined to Australia. 
Their young are produced from eggs. 
Australia now possesses a large stock of 
the domestic animals of Britain, which 


thrive there remarkably well. The breed 
of horses is excellent. Horned cattle and 
sheep are largely bred, the first attaining 
a great size, while the sheep improve in 
fleece and their flesh in flavor. There 
are upwards of 650 different species of 
birds, the largest being the emu, or Aus¬ 
tralian ostrich, and a species of casso¬ 
wary. Peculiar to the country are the 
black-swan, the honey-sucker, the lyre¬ 
bird, the brush-turkey, and other mound¬ 
building birds, the bower-birds, etc. The 
parrot tribe preponderates over most other 
groups of birds in the continent. There 
are many reptiles, the largest being the 
alligator, found in some of the northern 
rivers. There are upwards of 60 differ¬ 
ent species of snakes, some of which are 
very venomous. Lizards, frogs, and in¬ 
sects are also numerous in various parts. 
The seas, rivers, and lagoons abound in 
fish of numerous varieties, and other 
aquatic animals, many of them peculiar. 
Whales and seals frequent the coasts. On 
the N. coasts are extensive fisheries of 
trepang, much visited by native traders 
from the Indian Archipelago. Some ani¬ 
mals of European origin, such as the 
rabbit and the sparrow, have developed 
into real pests in several of the colonies. 

The natives belong to the Australian 
negro stock, and are sometimes consid¬ 
ered the lowest as regards intelligence 
in the whole human family, though this 
is doubtful. They are of a dark-brown 
or black color, with jet-black curly but 
not woolly hair, of medium size, but in¬ 
ferior muscular development. In the 
settled parts of the continent they are 
inoffensive, and rapidly dying out. They 
have no fixed habitations; in the sum¬ 
mer they live almost entirely in the open 
air, and in the more inclement weather 
they shelter themselves with bark erec¬ 
tions of the rudest construction. They 
have no cultivation and no domestic 
animals. Their food consists of such 
animals as they can kill, and no kind of 
living creature seems to be rejected, 
snakes, lizards, frogs, and even insects 
being eaten, often half raw. They are 
ignorant of the potter’s art. In their 
natural condition they wear little or no 
clothing. They speak a number of dif¬ 
ferent languages or dialects. The women 
are regarded merely as slaves, and are 
frightfully maltreated. They have no 
religion; they practice polygamy, and are 
said to sometimes resort to cannibalism, 
but only in exceptional circumstances. 
They are occasionally employed by the 
settlers in light kinds of w^ork, and as 
horse-breakers; but they dislike contin¬ 
uous occupation, and soon give it up. 
The weapons of all the tribes are gener- 



Australia 


Australia 


ally similar, consisting of spears, shields, 
boomerangs, wooden axes, clubs, and 
stone hatchets. Of these the boomerang 
is the most singular. 

Until 1899 each of the colonies was 
quite independent of the others, having a 
governor, administration, and (except 
Western Australia) a parliament of its 
own. In 1885 a measure was passed by 
the imperial parliament to enable the 
whole of the Australasian colonies to 
federate. This was accomplished by 
legislation from 1894 onward, the new 
commonwealth of Australia beginning its 
career January 1, 1901. The parliament 
of the commonwealth consists of a Senate 
of thirty-six members, six from each State, 
elected by the people, not by the State 
legislatures; and a Representative Cham¬ 
ber of seventy-two members, elected 
every three years by the people. There is 
a Governor-general appointed by the 
British sovereign, with powers somewhat 
more extensive than those of the U. S. 
president. There is no established 
church in any of the colonies. The de¬ 
nomination which numbers most ad¬ 
herents is the English or Anglican 
Church, next to which come the Roman 
Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists. 
Education is well provided for, instruc¬ 
tion in the primary schools being in 
some cases free and compulsory, and the 
higher education being more and more 
attended to. There are flourishing uni¬ 
versities in Melbourne, Sydney, and Ade¬ 
laide. Newspapers, are exceedingly nu¬ 
merous, and periodicals of all kinds are 
abundant. There is as yet no native 
literature of any distinctive type, but 
names of Australian writers of ability 
both in prose and poetry are beginning to 
be known beyond their own country. 

Pastoral and agricultural pursuits and 
mining are the chief occupations of the 
people, though manufactures and handi¬ 
crafts also employ large numbers. For 
sheep-rearing and the growth of wool the 
Australian colonies are unrivaled, and 
while the production of gold has consider¬ 
ably decreased that of wool is constantly 
on the increase. The great bulk of the 
wool exported goes to Britain, which in 
the last two or three years has received 
over 300,000,000 lbs. from the Australian 
colonies annually. The commerce is 
rapidly extending, and becoming every 
year more important to Britain, whence 
the colonists derive their chief supplies of 
manufactured goods in return for wool, 
gold, and other produce. Next to wool 
come gold, tin, copper, wheat, meat, tal¬ 
low, hides and skins, cotton, tobacco, 
sugar, and wine as the most important 
items of export. The chief imports con¬ 


sist of textile fabrics, haberdashery, and 
clothing, machinery and metal goods. 
There are upwards of 15,000 miles of rail¬ 
way in actual use or in course of construc¬ 
tion, and about 50,000 miles of telegraph. 
The longest telegraph line is that running 
northwards across the continent from 
Adelaide. The two chief routes for mails 
between Britain and the Australian 
colonies are by way of the Suez Canal, 
and by San Francisco across the Ameri¬ 
can continent. The coinage is the same 
as in the mother country. Banks and 
banking offices are numerous, including 
postoffice or other savings-banks for the 
reception of small sums. 

It is doubtful when Australia was 
first discovered by Europeans. Between 
1531 and 1542 the Portuguese published 
the existence of a land which they called 
Great Java, and which corresponded to 
Australia, and probably the first dis¬ 
covery of the country was made by them 
early in the sixteenth century. The first 
authenticated discovery is said to have 
been made in 1601, by a Portuguese 
named Manoel Godinho de Eredia. In 
1606 Torres, a Spaniard, passed through 
the strait that now bears his name, 
between New Guinea and Australia. 
Between this period and 1628 a large 
portion of the coast-line of Australia 
was surveyed by various Dutch navi¬ 
gators. In 1664 the continent was 
named New Holland by the Dutch gov¬ 
ernment. In 1688 Dampier coasted along 
part of Australia, and about 1700 ex¬ 
plored a part of the w. and n. w. coasts. 
In 1770 Cook carefully surveyed the E. 
coast, named a number of localities, and 
took possession of the country for Britain. 
He was followed by Bligh in 1789, who 
carried on a series of observations on the 
n. e. coast, adding largely to the knowl¬ 
edge already obtained of this new world. 
Colonists had now arrived on the soil, 
and a penal settlement was formed 
(1788) at Port Jackson. In this way 
was laid the foundation of the future 
colony of New South Wales. The More- 
ton Bay district (Queensland) was set¬ 
tled in 1825; in 1835 the Port Phillip 
district. In 1851 the latter district was 
erected into a separate colony under the 
name of Victoria. Previous to this time 
the colonies both of Western Australia 
and of South Australia had been founded 
—the former in 1829, the latter in 1836. 
The latest of the colonies is Queensland, 
which took an independent existence in 
1859. The discovery of gold in abun¬ 
dance took place in 1851 and caused an 
immense excitement and great influx of 
immigrants. The population was then 
only about 350,000, and was slowly in- 



Australian Ballot 


Austria 


creasing; but the discovery of the pre¬ 
cious metal started the country on that 
career of prosperity which has since been 
almost uninterrupted. Convicts were 
long sent to Australia from the mother 
country, but transportation to New 
South Wales practically ceased in 1840, 
and the last convict vessel to W. Aus¬ 
tralia arrived in 1868. Altogether about 
70,000 convicts were landed in Australia 
(besides almost as many in Tasmania). 

The record of interior exploration 
forms an interesting part of Australian 
history. This has been going on since 
early in the last century, and is yet far 
from complete. There being still a large 
area of the continent of which little or 
nothing is known. See the articles on 
the separate colonies. 

Australian Ballot. See Ballot. 

(as'tri-a; in German Oester- 
reich, that is, Eastern Em¬ 
pire), or Austria-Hungary, an exten¬ 
sive duplex monarchy in Central Europe, 
inhabited by several distinct nation¬ 
alities, and consisting of two semi-inde¬ 
pendent countries, each with its own 
parliament and government, but with one 
common sovereign, army, and system of 
diplomacy, and also with a common par¬ 
liament. The Austrian Empire now has 
a total area of about 240,000 square 
miles, and is bounded s. by the Adriatic, 
Italy and the Balkan States; w. by 
Switzerland, Bavaria, and Saxony; n. by 
Prussia and Russian Poland; and e. by 
Russia and Roumania. On the shores of 
the Adriatic, along the coasts of Dalma¬ 
tia, Croatia, Istria, etc., lies its only sea 
frontage, which is of comparatively insig¬ 
nificant extent. Besides the two great 
divisions of Austria proper, or ‘ Cislei- 
than ’ Austria and Hungary or ‘ Trans- 
leithan ’ Austria, the Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy is divided into a number of 
governments or provinces, as follows, with 
census of 1900:— 


Divisions. 

Area in 
sq. m. 

Population. 

Austrian Provinces — 
Lower Austria. 

7,654 

4 Aftl 

ft inn 4Qft 

Upper Austria. 

O, !UU,4yO 

810,246 

1 qo fyf*o 

Salzburg. 

4,001 

2 7A7 

Styria. 

ft A7fi 

iy*, < do 
1,356,494 

QO A 

Carinthia. 

0,0# U 

4 on* 

Carniola. 

4,UUO 
ft ft*A 

ovi ,0*4 

Coast land.. 

0,000 

3 084 

0Uo,10U 

Tyrol and Vorarlberg.... 
Bohemia. 

11,324 
20 OfiO 

<00,040 

981,949 

£ Q1Q AO*y 

Moravia. 

8 583 

0,010, OVh 
o AQty r?(\R 

Silesia. 

1987 

*,4o<, <U0 
AQn AOO 

Galicia. 

ftO ft07 

0oU,4** 

7 Q1K GQG 

Bukowina. 

00,001 

4,035 

< ,olo,yoy 
7ftn iq* 

Dalmatia. 

4 940 

«ou, iyo 
593,784 



Total Austria. 

115,903 

26,150,708 


Austria 


Hungarian Provinces — 

Area in 

Population. 

Hungary (including 

sq. m. 


Transylvania). 

108,258 

16,838,255 

Croatia and Slavonia. 

16,773 

2,384,986 

Fiume. 

8 

31,318 

Total Hungary. 

125,039 

19,254.559 

Total Austria- 



Hungary. 

240,942 

45,405,267 


In 1910 the total population was esti¬ 
mated at 49,418,598. The largest cities 
are Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Lemberg, 
Gratz, Brunn, Szegedin, Trieste, Cracow, 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly Turk¬ 
ish, but recently annexed by Austria, 
have an area of 19,728 square miles. 
Pop. 1,828,379. 

The prevailing character of the Aus¬ 
trian dominions is mountainous or hilly, 
the plains not occupying more than a 
fifth part of the whole surface. The loft¬ 
iest ranges belong to the Alps, and are 
found in Tyrol. Styria, Salzburg, and 
Carinthia, the highest summits being the 
Ortlerspitzen (12,814 ft.) on the western 
boundary of Tyrol, and the Grossglock- 
ner (12,300) on the borders of Salzburg, 
Tyrol,. and Carinthia. Another great 
range is that of the Carpathians, bound¬ 
ing Hungary on the north. The most ex¬ 
tensive tracts of low or flat land, much 
of which is^ very fertile, occur in Hun¬ 
gary, Galicia, and Slavonia, the great 
Hungarian plain having an area of 36,000 
square miles. They stretch along the 
courses of the rivers, of which the chief 
are the Danube, with its tributaries the 
Save, the Drave, the Theiss, the Maros, 
the Waag. the March, the Raab, the Inn ; 
also the Elbe and Moldau and the Dnies¬ 
ter. The Danube for upwards of 800 
miles is navigable for fairly large vessels; 
the tributaries also are largely navigable. 
The lakes are numerous and often pictur¬ 
esque, the chief being Lake Balaton or 
the Plattensee. The climate is exceed¬ 
ingly varied, but generally favorable. 
The principal products of the north are 
wheat, barley, oats, and rye; in the 
center vines and maize are added; and in 
the south olives and various fruits. The 
cereals grow to perfection, Hungarian 
wheat and flour being celebrated. Other 
crops are hops, tobacco, flax, and hemp. 
Wine is largely made, but the wines are 
inferior on the whole, with exception of a 
few kinds, including Tokay. The forests 
cover 70,000 square miles, or one-third of 
the productive soil of the empire. Sheep 
and cattle are largely reared.—Wild 
deer, wild swine, chamois, foxes, lynxes, 
and a. species of small black bear are 
found in many districts, the fox and lynx 
being particularly abundant. Herds of a 

































Austria 


Austria 


small native breed of horses roam wild 
over the plains of Hungary.—In mineral 
productions Austria is very rich, possess¬ 
ing, with the exception of platinum, all 
the useful metals, the total annual value 
of the mineral products of the Austrian 
Empire being estimated at upwards of 
$00,000,000, the principal being coal, salt, 
and iron. 

Manufactures are in the most flourish¬ 
ing condition in Bohemia, Moravia, 
Silesia, and Lower Austria; less so in 
the eastern provinces, and insignificant 
in Dalmatia, Bukowina, Herzegovina, etc. 
Among the most important manufactures 
are those of machinery and metal goods, 
Austria holding a high place for the man¬ 
ufacture of musical and scientific instru¬ 
ments, gold and silver plate, and jewelry; 
of stone and china-ware, and of glass, 
which is one of the oldest and most 
highly developed industries in Austria; 
of chemicals; of sugar from beet; of beer, 
spirits, etc., and especially the manufac¬ 
tures of woolen, cotton, hemp, and flax. 
The manufacture of tobacco is a state 
monopoly. Tanning is carried on to a 
great extent, and in the production of 
gloves (in Vienna and Prague), Austria 
stands next to France. 

In addition to the general import and 
export trade Austria carries on a very 
considerable amount of business in the 
transit of goods through her territory. 
The imports are cotton and other fibers, 
textile goods and yarn, metals, machinery, 
drugs, chemicals, oils, fats, hides, skins, 
etc. The chief exports are cereals, ani¬ 
mals, metallic goods, woven fabrics, 
pottery and glass manufactures. Nearly 
two-thirds of the commerce is with Ger¬ 
many, next in importance being the trade 
with Roumania, Italy, and Russia. The 
mercantile navy of Austria has a total 
burden of about 500,000 tons. The prin¬ 
cipal ports are Trieste, Pola, and Fiume. 
There are about 27,000 miles of railway 
open. 

None of the European States, except 
Russia, exhibits such a diversity of race 
and language as the Austrian Empire. 
The Slavs—who differ greatly, however, 
among themselves in language and civ¬ 
ilization—amount to above 22,000,000 or 
nearly half the total population, and form 
a great mass of the population of Bo¬ 
hemia, Moravia, Carniola, Galicia, Dal¬ 
matia, Croatia, and Slavonia, and North¬ 
ern Hungary, and half the population of 
Silesia and Bukowina. The Germans, 
about 11,500,000, form almost the sole 
population of the archduchy of Austria, 
Salzburg, the greatest portion of Styria 
and Carinthia, almost the whole of Tyrol 
and Vorarlberg, large portions of Bohemia 
21—1 


and Moravia, the whole of West Silesia, 
etc.; and they are also numerous in Hun¬ 
gary and Transylvania. The Magyars 
or Hungarians (8,750,000) form the bulk 
of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of 
Hungary and Eastern Transylvania. Of 
the Italic or Western Romanic stock 
there are about 700,000, and in the 
southeast about 3,000,000 of the Rou¬ 
manian or Eastern Romanic stock. The 
number of Jews is above 1,000,000; and 
there are other races, such as the Gypsies 
(100,000), who are most numerous in 
Hungary and Transylvania, and the Al¬ 
banian’s in Dalmatia and the adjacent 
parts. The population, generally speak¬ 
ing, decreases in density from west to 
east. The state religion of Austria is the 
Roman Catholic, but the civil power ex¬ 
ercises supreme control in all ecclesias¬ 
tical matters. 

The intellectual culture of the people is 
highest in the German provinces. In 
some of the other provinces the illiterates 
are in a large percentage. Yet for a 
number of years attendance on the ele¬ 
mentary schools has been compulsory on 
all children from their sixth to the end of 
their twelfth year; and there are higher 
schools on which attendance is compul¬ 
sory for young people of thirteen to 
fifteen years (not elsewhere educated). 
There are numerous gymnasia and ‘ real- 
schools,’ the gymnasia being intended 
chiefly to prepare pupils for the univer¬ 
sities, while in the real-schools a more 
practical end is kept in view, and modern 
languages and physical science form the 
groundwork of the educational course; 
also agricultural, commercial, industrial, 
art, music, and other special schools. 
There are eleven universities, viz., in 
Vienna, Prague (2), Budapest, Gratz, 
Cracow, Lemberg, Innsbruck, Klausen- 
burg, Agran, and Czernowitz. Most of 
these have four faculties—Catholic theol¬ 
ogy, law and politics, medicine, and phi¬ 
losophy. 

The ruler of the Austro-Hungarian mon¬ 
archy has the title of emperor so far as 
concerns his Austrian dominions, but he 
is only king of Hungary. All matters 
affecting the joint interests of the two 
divisions of the empire, such as foreign 
affairs, war, and finance, are dealt with 
by a supreme body known as the Dele¬ 
gations—a parliament of 120 members, 
one-half of whom are chosen by and rep¬ 
resent the legislature of German 
Austria and the other half that of Hun¬ 
gary. The legislative center of the Aus¬ 
trian division of the empire is the Reichs- 
rath, or council of the realm, consisting 
of an upper house (Herrenhaus), com¬ 
posed of princes of the imperial family, 




Austria 


Austria 


nobles with the hereditary right .to sit, 
archbishops and life-members nominated 
by the emperor; and a lower house (Ab- 
geordnetenhaus) of 353 elected deputies. 
There are seventeen provincial diets or 
assemblies, each provincial division hav¬ 
ing one. In the Hungarian division of 
the empire the legislative power is vested 
in the king and the diet or Reichstag con¬ 
jointly, the latter consisting of an upper 
house or house of magnates and of a 
lower house or house of representatives, 
the latter elected by all citizens of full 
age paying direct taxes to the amount of 
16s. a year. The powers of the Hunga¬ 
rian Reichstag correspond to those of the 
Reichsrath of the Cisleithan provinces. 
There being three distinct parliaments in 
the empire, there are also three budgets, 
that, viz. for the whole empire, that for 
Cisleithan, and that for Transleithan 
Austria. 

Military service is obligatory on all 
citizens capable of bearing arms who 
have attained the age of twenty. The 
period of service is twelve years, of which 
three are passed in the line, seven in the 
reserve, and two in the landwehr. The 
army numbers over 400,000 men (includ¬ 
ing officers) on the peace footing and 
over 1,800,000 on the war-footing. The 
most important portion of the Austrian 
navy comprises 12 ironclads, of from 5 to 
14-inch armor, besides gunboats, torpedo 
vessels, and other vessels, mostly small 
and intended for coast defense. The 
crews number about 13,000 officers and 
men. 

History .—In 791 Charlemagne drove 
the Avars from the territory between the 
Ens and the Raab, and united it to his 
empire under the name of the Eastern 
Mark (that is March or boundary land) ; 
and from the establishment by him of a 
margraviate in this new province the pres¬ 
ent empire took its rise. On the inva¬ 
sion of Germany by the Hungarians it 
became subject to them from 900 till 955, 
when Otho I, by the victory of Augsburg, 
reunited a great part of this province to 
the German Empire, which by 1043 
had extended its limits to the Leitha. 
The margraviate of Austria was hered¬ 
itary in the family of the counts of 
Babenberg (Bamberg) from 982 till 
1156, in which year the boundaries of 
Austria were extended so as to include 
the territory above the Ens and the 
whole was created a duchy. The terri¬ 
tory was still further increased in 1192 
by the gift of the duchy of Styria as a 
fief from the Emperor Henry VI, Vienna 
being by this time the capital. The 
male line of the house of Bamberg be¬ 
came extinct in 1246, and the Emperor 


Frederick II declared Austria and Styria 
a vacant fief, the hereditary prop¬ 
erty of the German emperors. In 1282 
the Emperor Rudolph granted Austria, 
Styria, and Carinthia to his two sons, 
Albert and Rudolph. The former became 
sole ruler (duke), and since then Aus¬ 
tria has been under the still reigning 
house of Hapsburg. Albert, who was an 
energetic ruler, was elected emperor in 
1298, but was assassinated in 1308. The 
first of his successors, we need specially 
mention, was Albert V, son-in-law of the 
Emperor Sigismund. He assisted Sigis- 
mund in the Hussite wars, and was 
elected after his death King of Hungary 
and of Bohemia, and German emperor 
(1438). Ladislaus, his posthumous son, 
was the last of the Austrian line proper, 
and its possessions devolved upon the col¬ 
lateral Styrian line in 1457; since which 
time the house of Austria furnished an 
unbroken succession of German em¬ 
perors. 

In 1453 the Emperor Frederick III, a 
member of this house, had conferred upon 
the country the rank of an archduchy 
before he himself became ruler of all 
Austria. His son Maximilian I, by his 
marriage with Mary, the surviving daugh¬ 
ter of Charles the Bold, united the 
Netherlands to the Austrian dominions. 
After the death of his father in 1493 
Maximilian was made Emperor of Ger¬ 
many, and transferred to his son Philip 
the government of the Netherlands. He 
also added to his paternal inheritance 
Tyrol, with several other territories, par¬ 
ticularly some belonging to Bavaria, and 
acquired for his family new claims to 
Hungary and Bohemia. The marriage of 
his son Philip to Joanna of Spain raised 
the house of Hapsburg to the throne of 
Spain. Philip, however, died in 1506, 
and the death of Maximilian in 1519 was 
followed by the union of Spain and 
Austria; his grandson (the eldest son of 
Philip), Charles I, king of Spain, being 
elected Emperor of Germany as Charles 
V. Charles thus became the greatest 
monarch in Europe, but in 1521 he ceded 
to his brother Ferdinand all his domin¬ 
ions in Germany. Ferdinand I, by his 
marriage with Anna, the sister of Louis 
II, king of Hungary, acquired the king¬ 
doms of Hungary and Bohemia, with 
Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, the ap¬ 
pendages of Bohemia. To oppose him 
the waywode of Transylvania, John Za- 
polya, sought the help of the sultan, 
Soliman II, who appeared in 1529 at the 
gates of Vienna, but was compelled to re¬ 
treat. In 1535 a treaty w r as made by 
which John von Zapolya was allowed to 
retain the royal title and half of Hungary, 




Austria 


Austria 


but after his death new disputes arose, 
and Ferdinand maintained the possession 
of Lower Hungary only by paying Soli- 
man the sum of 30,000 ducats annually 
(1562). In 1556 Ferdinand obtained the 
imperial crown, when his brother Charles 
laid by the scepter for a cowl. He died 
in 1564, leaving his territories to be 
divided among his three sons. 

Maximilian II, the eldest, succeeded 
his father as emperor, obtaining Austria, 
Hungary, and Bohemia ; Ferdinand, the 
second son, received Tyrol and Hither 
Austria: and Charles, the youngest, ob¬ 
tained Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and 
Gorz. Maximilian died in 1576, and was 
succeeded in the imoerial throne by his 
eldest son Rudolph II, who had already 
been crowned King of Hungary in 1572, 
and King of Bohemia, in 1575. Ru¬ 
dolph’s reign was distinguished by the 
war against Turkey and Transylvania; 
the persecutions of the Protestants, who 
were driven from his dominions; the 
cession of Hungary in 1608; and in 1611 
of Bohemia and his hereditary estates in 
Austria to his brother Matthias. Mat¬ 
thias, who succeeded Maximilian on the 
imperial throne, concluded a peace with 
the Turks, but was disturbed by the Prot¬ 
estant Bohemians, who took up arms in 
defense of their religious rights, thus 
commencing the Thirty Years’ War. 
After his death in 1619 the Bohemians 
refused to acknowledge his successor, 
Ferdinand II, until after the battle of 
Prague in 1620, when Bohemia had 
to submit, and was deprived of the right 
of choosing her king. Lutheranism was 
strictly forbidden in all the Austrian 
dominions. Hungary, which revolted un¬ 
der Bethlem Gabor, Prince of Tran¬ 
sylvania, was, after a long struggle, sub¬ 
dued. During the reign of Ferdinand 
III (1637-57), successor of Ferdinand 
II, Austria was continually the theater 
of war; Lusatia was ceded to Saxony in 
1635; and Alsace to France in 1648, 
when peace was restored in Germany by 
the treaty of Westphalia. 

The Emperor Leopold I, son and suc¬ 
cessor to Ferdinand III, was victorious 
through the talents of Eugene in two 
wars with Turkey, and Vienna was de¬ 
livered by Sobieski and the Germans 
from the attacks of Kara Mustapha in 
1683. In 1687 he united Hungary to 
Transylvania, and in 1699 restored to 
Hungary the country lying between the 
Danube and the Theiss. It was the 
chief aim of Leopold to secure to 
Charles, his second son, the inheritance 
of the Spanish monarchy, and in 1701, 
upon the victory of French diplomacy in 
the appointment of the grandson of Louis 


XIV, the war of the Spanish succession 
commenced. Leopold died in 1705. but 
Joseph I, his eldest son, continued the 
war. As he died without children in 
1711, his brother Charles was elected 
emperor, but was obliged to accede in 
1714 to the Peace of Utrecht, by which 
Austria received the Netherlands, Milan, 
Mantua, Naples, and Sardinia. In 1720 
Sicily was given to Austria in exchange 
for Sardinia. This monarchy now em¬ 
braced over 190,000 square miles; but its 
power was weakened by new wars with 

Spain and France. In the peace con¬ 

cluded at Vienna (1735 and 1738) 
Charles was forced to cede Naples and 
Sicily to Spain and part of Milan to the 
King of Sardinia; and in 1739, by the 
Peace of Belgrade, he was obliged to 

transfer to the Porte Belgrade, Servia, 
etc., partly in order to secure the succes¬ 
sion to his daughter Maria Theresa by 
the Pragmatic Sanction. He died in 
1740. 

On the marriage of Maria Theresa 

with Stephen, Duke of Lorraine (the 
dynasty henceforth being that of Haps- 
burg-Lorraine), and her accession to the 
Austrian throne, the empire was threat¬ 
ened with dismemberment. Frederick 
II of Prussia subdued Silesia; the Elec¬ 
tor of Bavaria was crowned in Lintz and 
Prague, and in 1742 chosen emperor 
under the name of Charles VI; Hungary 
alone supported the heroic and beautiful 
queen. Charles, however, died in 1745, 
and the husband of Theresa was crowned 
Emperor of Germany as Francis I; but 
a treaty concluded in 1745 confirmed to 
Frederick the possession of Silesia and 
by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, 
Austria was obliged to cede the duchies 
of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to 
Philip, Infant of Spain, and several dis¬ 
tricts of Milan to Sardinia. To recover 
Silesia Maria Theresa formed an alliance 
with France, Russia, Saxony, and 
Sweden, and entered upon the Seven 
Years’ War; but by the Peace of Hu- 
bertsberg, 1763, Silesia was recognized as 
Prussian territory. On the death of 
Francis I in 1765 Joseph II, his eldest 
son, was appointed to assist his mother 
in the government and elected Emperor 
of Germany. The partition of Poland 
(1772) gave Galicia and Lodomeria to 
Austria, which also obtained Bukowina 
from the Porte in 1777. At the death of 
the empress in 1780 Austria contained 
235,000 square miles with a pop. esti¬ 
mated at 24,000,000. 

The liberal home administration of the 
empress was continued and extended by 
her successor, Joseph II, who did much 
to further the spread of religious toler- 




Austria 


Austria 


ance, education, and the industrial arts. 
The Low Countries, however, revolted, 
and he was unsuccessful in the war of 
1788 against the Porte. His death took 
place in 1790. He was succeeded by his 
eldest brother, Leopold II, under whom 
peace was restored in the Netherlands 
and in Hungary, and also with the Porte. 
On the death of his sister and her hus¬ 
band, Louis XVI of France, he formed an 
alliance with Prussia, but died in 1792, 
before the French revolutionary war 
broke out. 

His son Francis II, succeeded, and 
was elected German emperor, by which 
time France had declared war against 
him as King of Hungary and Bohemia. 
In 1795, in the third division of Poland, 
West Galicia fell to Austria, and by the 
Peace of Campo-Formio (1797) she re¬ 
ceived the largest part of the Venetian 
territory as compensation for her loss of 
Lombardy and the Netherlands. In 
1799 Francis, in alliance with Russia, 
renewed the war with France until 1801, 
when the peace of Luneville was con¬ 
cluded. In 1804 Francis declared himself 
hereditary Emperor of Austria as Francis 
I, and united all his states under the 
name of the Empire of Austria, immedi¬ 
ately taking up arms once more with his 
allies Russia and Great Britain against 
France. The war of 1805 was termi¬ 
nated by the Peace of Pressburg (Dec. 
26), by which Francis had to cede to 
France the remaining provinces of Italy, 
as well as to give up portions of territory 
to Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, re¬ 
ceiving in return Salzburg and Berch- 
tesgaden. After the formation of the 
Confederation of the Rhine (July 12, 
1806) Francis was forced to resign his 
dignity as Emperor of Germany, which 
had been in his family more than 500 
years. A new war with France in 1809 
cost the monarchy 42,380 square miles of 
territory and 3,500,000 subjects. Napo¬ 
leon married Maria Louisa, daughter of 
the emperor, and in 1812 concluded an 
alliance with him against Russia. But in 
1813 Francis again declared war against 
France, and formed an alliance with 
Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden 
against his son-in-law. By the Congress 
of Vienna (1815) Austria gained Lom¬ 
bardy and Venetia, and recovered, to¬ 
gether with Dalmatia, the hereditary ter¬ 
ritories which it had been obliged to 
cede. 

In the troubled period following the 
French revolution of 1830 insurrections 
took place in Modena, Parma, and the 
Papal States (1831-32), but were sup¬ 
pressed without much difficulty; and 
though professedly neutral during the 


Polish insurrections Austria clearly 
showed herself on the side of Russia, 
with whom her relations became more in¬ 
timate as those between Great Britain 
and France grew more cordial. The 
death of Francis I (1835) and accession 
of his son Ferdinand I made little 
change in the Austrian system of govern¬ 
ment, and much discontent was the conse¬ 
quence. In 1846 the failure of the Polish 
insurrection led to the incorporation of 
Cracow with Austria. In Italy the dec¬ 
larations of Pio Nono in favor of re¬ 
form increased the difficulties of Austria, 
and in Hungary the opposition under 
Kossuth and others assumed the form of 
a great constitutional movement. In 
1848, when the expulsion of Louis 
Philippe shook all Europe, Metternieh 
found it impossible any longer to guide 
the helm of state, and the government 
was compelled to admit a free press and 
the right of citizens to arms. Apart 
from the popular attitude in Italy and 
in Hungary, where the diet declared itself 
permanent under the presidency of Kos¬ 
suth, the insurrection made equal prog¬ 
ress in Vienna itself, and the royal 
family, no longer in safety, removed to 
Innsbruck. After various ministerial 
changes the emperor abdicated in favor 
of his nephew, Francis Joseph; more 
vigorous measures were adopted; and 
Austria, aided by Russia, reduced Hun¬ 
gary to submission. 

The year 1855 is memorable for the 
Concordat with the pope, which nut the 
educational and ecclesiastical affairs of 
the empire entirely into the hands of the 
Papal see. In 1859 the hostile intentions 
of France and Sardinia against the pos¬ 
sessions of Austria in Italy became so 
evident that she declared war by sending 
an army across the Ticino; but after dis¬ 
astrous defeats at Magenta and Solferino 
she was compelled to cede Milan and the 
northwest portion of Lombardy to Sar¬ 
dinia. In 1864 she joined with the Ger¬ 
man states in the spoliation of Denmark, 
but a dispute about Schleswig-Holstein 
involved her in a war with her allies 
(1866), while at the same time Italy 
renewed her attempts for the recovery of 
Venice. The Italians were defeated at 
Custozza and driven back across the 
Mincio; but the Prussians, victorious at 
Koniggratz (or Sadowa), threatened 
Vienna. Peace was concluded with Prus¬ 
sia on Aug. 23 and with Italy on Oct. 3, 
the result of the war being the cession 
of Venetia through France to Italy and 
the withdrawal of Austria from all in¬ 
terference in the affairs of Germany. 

Since 1866 Austria has been occupied 
chiefly with the internal affairs of the 



Auteuil 


Automobile 


empire. Hungarian demands for self- 
government were finally agreed to, and 
the Empire of Austria divided into the 
two parts already mentioned—the Cislei- 
than and the Transleithan. This settle¬ 
ment was consummated by the coronation 
of the Emperor Francis Joseph I, at 
Budapest, as King of Hungary, on the 
8 th of June, 1867. In the same year 
the Concordat of 1855 came up for dis¬ 
cussion, and measures were passed for 
the re-establishment of civil marriage, 
the emancipation of schools from the dom¬ 
ination of the church, and the placing of 
different creeds on a footing of equality. 
The fact of the Austro-Hungarian do¬ 
minions comprising so many different 
nationalities has always given the central 
government much trouble, both in regard 
to internal and to external affairs. In 
regard to the ‘ Eastern Question,’ for 
instance, the action of Austria has been 
hampered by the sympathies shown by 
the Magyars for their blood relations, the 
Turks, while the Slavs have naturally 
been more favorable to Russia. During 
the war between Russia and Turkey in 
1877-78 Austria remained neutral; but 
at its close, in the middle of 1878, it 
was decided, at the Congress of Berlin, 
that the provinces of Bosnia and Herze¬ 
govina should be administered by Aus¬ 
tria. In 1908 they were annexed by 
Austria, an act which created much dis¬ 
turbance in the Balkan States, though 
it passed away without the threatened 
wars. 

A nfpnil (o-te-ye), formerly a sub- 
21U.lcU.li ur b an village of Paris, but 

now inclosed within the fortifications. 

Antnrhthories (a-tok'tho-nez), the 

2i ulOCillIlUIlcS Greek name for the 

aboriginal inhabitants of a country. 
Antoerot (a'to-krat; Gr. autos, self, 
xiuiucictt Jcratos, rule), an absolute 

or uncontrolled ruler; the head of a state 
who is not controlled by any constitu¬ 
tional limitations; such as the Emperor 
of Russia until very recently. 

Avi-f-n rip fp (ou'to-da-fa; Spanish), 
21UXO ae R Auto DA Fe (Portu¬ 
guese), lit., ‘act of faith.’ See Inquisi¬ 
tion. 

All fob arn (a'to-harp), a musical in- 
ilUbOIlclip strument like the zither, 

but arranged with movable dampers to 
produce the various cords as the strings 
are touched. 

AntoPTfl-nh (fl'to-graf), a person’s 
21UtOglctpil Qwn handwriting; an 

original manuscript or signature, as op¬ 
posed to a copy. The practice of collect¬ 
ing autographs or signatures dates at 
least from the sixteenth century, among 
the earliest collections known being 


those of Lomenie de Brienne and Lacroix 
du Maine. 

Automatism <*-tom'a-Uzm), the con- 
finement of activity in 
men or animals within a purely mechani¬ 
cal limit, resulting from injury to or 
partial removal of the brain. 

Autom'aton (Greek automates, spon¬ 
taneous), a self-moving 
machine performing actions like those of 
a living being, and often shaped like one. 
The walking statues of Daedalus, the fly¬ 
ing dove of Archytas, the brazen head of 
Friar Bacon, the iron fly of Regiomon¬ 
tanus, the door-opening figure of Albertus 
Magnus, the parading knights of the 
clock presented to Charlemagne by 
Harun al Rashid, the toy carriage and 
attendants constructed by Camus for 
Louis XIV, the flute-player, tambour- 
player, and duck of Vaucanson, and the 
writing child of the brothers Droz are 
among the more noteworthy of tradi¬ 
tional automata. 

Automobile ( «;‘f m5 ’ bil °. r . »- t5 -” s : 

bel ), a self-propelled 
vehicle; one moved by other than animal 
power and adapted to common roads and 
streets. The term includes vehicles used 
for passengers and freight, but not trac¬ 
tion engines used to draw a train of 
trucks or vans, nor carriages or cars 
fitted to travel on special tracks, as rail¬ 
way and street cars. For the origin of 
vehicles of this type we may go back as 
far as 1770, when Nicholas Cugnot, a 
French inventor, built two steam road- 
carriages, one of which is still in ex¬ 
istence, in the Conservatoire des Arts et 
Metiers, at Paris. Several others were 
producd during the 18th century, one by 
Oliver Evans of Philadelphia, which pro¬ 
pelled itself for some distance through the 
streets of that city. The first that 
actually ran in England was built by 
Richard Trevithick in 1802. This pro¬ 
pelled itself for 90 miles to London, where 
it was to be exhibited. Between 1827 
and 1836 Walter Henwick produced a 
number of steam wagons, used for pas¬ 
senger service. One of these, the 
‘ Automaton,’ ran for 20 weeks, and 
carried in all over 12,000 passengers. 
The opposition of road-trustees and the 
development of railways soon put an end 
to profitable enterprise in this direction, 
and at a later date progress was 
hampered by the absurdly severe laws 
governing the use of automobiles. Such 
vehicles were required to pay £10 license, 
to have two men as operators, to have 
a man go ahead with a red flag as a 
warning, and even on country roads were 
restricted to a speed of 4 miles an hour. 
The modern era of automobile construe- 





Automolite 


Ava-Ava 


tion began with the perfecting of the 
internal-combustion engine, with gasoline 
or naphtha as fuel, and the development 
of the electric-storage motor battery, 
(which see). In the final decade of the 
nineteenth century automobiles of much 
finer construction and higher speed made 
their appearance, espcially in France, 
where they became far more popular than 
in other countries. The weak construc¬ 
tion of these machines and their liability 
to frequent accidents and breakages stood 
in the way of their general adoption, and 
it was not until the earlier years of the 
twentieth century that they became 
widely popular. Within recent years 
they have been greatly perfected in 
strength and facility of operation and the 
number of them in use in the United 
States and elsewhere has grown enor¬ 
mously. In the year 1910 the number 
built in this country alone was estimated 
as over 200,000, with more than '400,000 
in use. Frequent exhibitions and racing 
contests have added greatly to their 
popularity, and their power and speed 
have so greatly increased that stringent 
laws limiting the speed of travel in cities 
and on country roads have been enacted 
for the prevention for accidents. As early 
as 1902 Angieres, of Paris, made a record 
mile in 48 seconds, and since then con¬ 


siderably higher speeds have been at¬ 
tained. The highest so far recorded is a 
mile in 25.40 seconds, on April 23, 1911. 
Numerous records at greater distances 
have been made, one of 100 miles being 
made at Los Angeles, April 17, 1910, in 
1 h. 16 m. 21.9 s., and one of 204 miles at 
Philadephia, October 9, 1911, in 3 li. 18 
m. 41 s. The fact that the automobile 
had its early development in France is 
indicated by the terms employed in the 
industry, such as chauffeur , garage , and 
limousine , of French origin. 

Automolite ^° mVUt) ’ See ° ah ~ 

Antnnomv (a-ton'o-mi), the power of a 
xx u. tuiiuiii state> i nst i tut i on> e tc., t o 

legislate for itself. 


Autophaeri ( M° r S; ji) » 1 birds which 

r ° feed themselves as soon 
as hatched 


Autoplasty ^'to-plas-ti), the operation 
P J by which wounds and dis¬ 
eased parts are repaired with healthy 
tissue taken from other parts of the same 
person’s body. 

Autopsy (a'top-si), a post-mortem ex- 
r J amination. 

Autotype (a'to-tfp). See photograv - 

Autumn (a'tum), the season between 
summer and winter, in the 
northern hemisphere often regarded as 


embracing August, September, and Oc¬ 
tober, or three months about that time. 
The beginning of the astronomical au¬ 
tumn is September 22, the autumnal equi¬ 
nox ; and the end is December 21, the 
shortest day. The autumn of the south¬ 
ern hemisphere takes place at the time of 
the northern spring. 


All til n ( 0 ' tu h; ancient Bihracte, later 
Augustodunum ), a city, South¬ 
eastern France, department of Saone-et- 
Loire. It has two Roman gates of ex¬ 
quisite workmanship, the ruins of an 
amphitheater and of several temples, the 
cathedral of St. Lazare, a fine Gothic 
structure of the eleventh century, manu¬ 
factures of carpets, woolens, cotton, 
velvet, hosiery, etc. Pop. (1906) 11,927. 


Anwrcrnp (o-var-nye), a province of 
xi u v ci g lie (j en t ra i France, now merged 

into the departments Cantal and Puy-de- 
Dome, and the arrondissement of Haute- 
Loire. The Auvergne Mountains, sepa¬ 
rating the basins of the Allier, Cher, and 
Creuse from those of the Lot and Dor¬ 
dogne, contain the highest points of Cen¬ 
tral France: Mount Dor, 6188 feet; Can¬ 
tal, 6093 feet, and Puy-de-D 5 me, 4806 
feet. The number of extinct volcanoes 
and general geological formation make the 
district one of great scientific interest. 
The minerals include iron, coal, copper, 
and lead, and there are warm and cold 
mineral springs. 

Alixprrp (o-sar), a town of France, 
uAciie department of Yonne, 110 
miles s. E. of Paris. Principal edifices: a 
fine Gothic cathedral, unfinished; the 
abbey of St. Germain, with curious 
crypts; and an old episcopal palace, now 
the Hotel de Prefecture; it manufactures 
woolens, hats, casks, leather, earthen¬ 
ware, violin strings, etc., trade, chiefly in 
wood and wines, of which the best known 
is white Chablis. Pop. (1906) 16,971. 

Alixometer (aks-om'e-tfcr), an instru¬ 
ment to measure the mag¬ 
nifying powers of an optical apparatus. 

AllXOmiP (o-son; anc. Aussona ), a 
xiuAUiuid town Qf France , department 

of C 6 te-d’Or (Burgundy), on the Saone; 
a fortified place, with some manufactures. 
Pop. (1906 ) 2766. 

Ava a town in A sia, formerly the 

capital of Burmah, on the Irrawady, 
now almost wholly in ruins. 

Ava-Ava Arva, Kava, or Yava (Ma- 
9 cropiper methysticum ), a 
plant of the nat. order Piperacese (pep- 
per famdy), so called by the inhabitants 
ot Polynesia who make an intoxicating 
out of it. Its leaves are chewed 
with betel in Southeastern Asia. It is 
diuretic and anaesthetic. 



Avadavat 


Average 


Avad'avat. Same as Amadcivat. 

Avalaneh e (av'a-lansh), a large mass 
of snow or ice precipi¬ 
tated from the mountains. There are 
distinctions of wind or dust avalanches , 
when they consist of fresh-fallen snow 
whirled like a dust storm into the 
valleys; sliding avalanches, when they 
consist of great masses of snow sliding 
down a slope by their own weight; and 
glacier or summer avalanches , when ice- 
masses are detached by heat from the 
high glaciers. Also applied to masses of 
earth and rock sliding down mountains. 

Aval Islands. as Bahrein 

Aval Inn (a-v&-lop), a town of Central 
xxvdliuii Franc d Y onne. p 

(1906) 5197. 

Avalon ( av,a_ l° n )* a sort fairyland 
or elysium mentioned in con¬ 
nection with the legends of King Arthur, 
being his abode after disappearing from 
the haunts of men; called also Avilion. 
The name is also identified with Glaston¬ 
bury ; and has been given to a peninsula 
of Newfoundland. 

Avanturine ( a " v an'tfir-ln), Aventur- 

XXVdllLUIlllC NE> a variety of quar t z 

containing glittering spangles of mica 
through it; also a sort of artificial gem of 
similar appearance. 

Avars (av'ars), a nation, probably of 
v cu a Turanian origin, who at an early 
period may have migrated from the region 
east of the Tobol in Siberia to that about 
the Don, the Caspian Sea, and theVolga. 
They became active in Europe in 555 
a.d. when a party of them advanced to 
the Danube and settled in Dacia. They 
served in Justinian’s army, aided the 
Lombards in destroying the kingdom of 
the Gepidae, and in the sixth century con¬ 
quered under their khan Bajan the region 
of Pannonia. They then won Dalmatia, 
pressed into Thuringia and Italy against 
the Franks and Lombards, and subdued 
the Slavs dwelling on the Danube, as 
well as the Bulgarians on the Black Sea. 
But they were ultimately limited to Pan¬ 
nonia, where they were overcome by 
Charlemagne, and nearly extirpated by 
the Slavs of Moravia. After 827 they 
disappear from history. Traces of their 
fortified settlements are found, and known 
as Avarian rings. 

Avatar (av-a-tar'), more properly Ava- 
xxvataj. TARA> i n Hindu mythology, an 

incarnation of the Deity. Of the innu¬ 
merable avatars the chief are the ten in¬ 
carnations of Vishnu, who appeared suc¬ 
cessively as a fish, a tortoise, a boar, etc. 
Avoteho (a-vatsh'a), a volcano and bay 
xivdLCiid i Q Kamchatka. The volcano, 


which is 9000 ft. high, was last active in 
1855. The town of Petropavlovsk lies on 
the bay. 

Avehnrv (av'be-ri), a village of Eng- 
XlVCUUiy i and> in Wiltshire, occupying 

the site of a so-called Druidical temple, 
which originally consisted of a large 
outer circle of 100 stones, from 15 to 17 
feet in height, and about 40 feet in cir¬ 
cumference, surrounded by a broad ditch 
and lofty rampart, and inclosing two 
smaller circles. Few traces now remain 
of the structure. On the neighboring 
downs are numerous barrows or tumuli, 
one of which, called Silbury Hill, rises to 
the height of 130 feet, with a circum¬ 
ference of 2027 feet at the base, covering 
an area of more than 5 acres. Sir John 
Lubbuck (q.v.) was raised to the peer¬ 
age as Baron Avebury in 1900. 

AveirO (a- va 'i- r u)> a coast town in Por- 
w tugal, province of Douro, with 
a cathedral, an active fishery, and a 
thriving trade. Pop. 10,012. 

A vpllinn (a-vel-le'no), a town in South- 
u ern Italy, capital of the prov¬ 
ince of Avellino, 29 m. east of Naples, 
the seat of a bishop. Avellino nuts were 
celebrated under the Romans. Pop. 15,403. 
Area of the prov. 1409; pop. 421,766. 

A vp TVTa vi a (a've, or a've m&-re'a ; 

Aveiviana < Hail> Mary , )t the first 

two words of the angel Gabriel’s saluta¬ 
tion (Luke, i, 28), and the beginning of 
the very common Latin prayer to the 
Virgin in the Roman Catholic Church. 
It consists of three parts, namely, the 
words the angel addressed to Mary when 
he announced to her the Incarnation, 
those with which Elizabeth saluted her, 
and those of the Church to implore her 
intercession. In the devotion of the 
Rosary, each decade consisting of one 
Pater and ten Aves, the latter are counted 
upon the small beads. 

A voviq (a-ve'na), the oat genus of plants, 
liveiid See 0at ' 

A vpyi <s a Eur °P ean plant, of the genus 
lx V eilb, Q e u m ' Common avens, or herb- 

bennet, G. urbdnum, possesses astringent 
properties. The American species, G. 
rivale, has the same properties; it is a 
fine plant. 

Avpnfailp (av'en-tal), the movable 
xx v ciiidiic f ace _g Uar a 0 f the helmet, 

through which the warrior breathed. 

A venturi TIP (a-ven'tur-In). See A- 
xx v cn i ui ine vanturin6t 

Average ( av * er ‘ a J)> i n maritime law, 
any charge or expense over 
and above the freight of goods, and pay¬ 
able by their owner.— General average is 
the sum falling to be paid by the owners 
of ship, cargo, and freight, in proportion 
to their several interests, to make good 



Avernus 


Avienus 


any loss or expense intentionally incurred 
for the general safety of ship and cargo; 
e.g., throwing goods overboard, cutting 
away masts, port dues in cases of dis¬ 
tress, etc .—Particular average is the 
sum falling to be paid for unavoidable 
loss when the general safety is not in 
question, and therefore chargeable on 
the individual owner of the property lost. 
A policy of insurance generally covers 
both general and particular averages, un¬ 
less specially excepted. 

Averrm? (a-ver'nus), a lake, now called 
xi. v ci ii us> LdQQ d'Averno, in Campania, 

Italy, between the ancient Cumae and 
Puteoli, about 8 m. from Naples. It 
occupies the crater of an old volcano, and 
is in some places 180 feet deep. For¬ 
merly the gloom of its forest surroundings 
and its mephitic exhalations caused it 
to be regarded as the entrance to the 
infernal regions. It was the fabled abode 
of the Cimmerians, and especially dedi¬ 
cated to Proserpine. 

Averrnpc (a-ver'o-ez; corrupted from 
XlVCllUCb lhn Roshd ^ the most re¬ 
nowned Arabian philosopher, born at 
Cordova, in Spain, probably between 
1120 and 1149. His ability procured 
him the succession to his father’s office 
of chief magistrate, and the King of 
Morocco appointed him at the same time 
cadi in the province of Mauretania. 
Accused of being an infidel, he was, how¬ 
ever, deprived of his offices, and ban¬ 
ished to Spain; but, being persecuted 
there also, he fled to Fez, where he was 
condemned to recant and undergo public 
penance. Upon this he went back to his 
own country, where the Caliph Alman- 
sur finally restored him to his dignities. 
He died at Morocco, the year of his death 
being variously given as 1198, 1206, 1217, 
and 1225. Averroes regarded Aristotle 
as the greatest of all philosophers, and 
devoted himself so largely to the exposi¬ 
tion of his works as to be called among 
the Arabians The Interpreter. He wrote 
a compendium of medicine, and treatises 
in theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, 
etc. His commentaries upon Aristotle 
appeared before 1250 in a Latin transla¬ 
tion attributed to Michael Scott and 
others. 


Averruncator (av-er-ung-ka'ter) a 

garden implement for 

pruning trees without a ladder, consisting 

of two blades similar to stout shears, 

one fixed rigidly to a long handle, and the 

other moved by a lever to which a cord 

passing over a pulley is attached. 

Averw (a-ver'sa), a well-built town of 
xxvciaa Southern Italy? 7 mi]es N of 

Naples, in a beautiful vine and orange 
district, the seat of a bishop, with a 


cathedral and various religious institu¬ 
tions, and an excellently-conducted lunatic 
asylum. Andreas of Hungary, husband 
of Queen Johanna I, was strangled in a 
convent here, Sept. 18, 1345. Pop. 

23,477. 

A vpqtipq (a-van), a town of France, dep. 
XlVCMIdS) N()rd pop (1906) 5()7U 

Avesta (a-ves'ta). See Zendavesta. 

AvPVrOTl (a-va-ron), a department occu- 
.nvcyiun pyi n g the southern extremity 

of the central plateau of France, traversed 
by mountains belonging to the Cevennes 
and the Cantal ranges; principal rivers: 
Aveyron, Lot, and Tarn, the Lot alone 
being navigable. The climate is cold, 
and agriculture is in a backward state, 
but considerable attention is paid to 
sheep-breeding. It is noted for its 
‘ Roquefort cheese.’ It has important 
coal, iron, and copper mines, besides 
other minerals. Area, 3340 sq. miles; 
capital, Rhodez. Pop (1906) 377,299. 

(a-vet-za'no), a town of S. 
xx VcZZclIIU Italyj prov Aquila . p op> 

8400. 

Aviarv (a'vi-a-ri), a building or in- 
« closure for keeping, breeding, 
and rearing birds. Aviaries appear to 
have been used by the Persians, Greeks, 
and Romans, and are highly prized in 
China. In England they were in use at 
least as early as 1577, when William 
Harrison refers to ‘ our costlie and 
curious aviaries.’ 

A viotinri (a'vi-a-shun), the problem of 

XlVldtiun flight as practised by birds 

and men. See Aeroplane. 

Avieemia (a-vi-sen'na) or Ebn-Sina, 
XIV ICC mid an Ara bi an philosopher and 

physician, born near Bokhara, a.d. 980. 
After practising as a physician he quitted 
Bokhara at the age of 22, and for a num¬ 
ber of years led a wandering life, settling 
at last at Hamadan, latterly as vizier of 
the emir. On the death of his patron he 
lived in retirement at Hamadan, but 
having secretly offered his services to 
the Sultan of Ispahan, he was imprisoned 
by the new emir. Escaping, he fled to 
Ispahan, was received with great honor 
by the sultan, and passed there in quiet¬ 
ness the last fourteen years of his life, 
writing upon medicine, logic, meta¬ 
physics, astronomy, and geometry. He 
died in 1037, leaving many writings, 
mostly commentaries on Aristotle. Of 
his 100 treatises the best known is the 
Canon Medicince. which was still in use 
as a text-book at Louvain and Montpel¬ 
lier in the middle of the seventeenth 
century. 

Avienus (av-i-e-nus), a collective 
term Latin descriptive poet, 



Avifauna 


Avranches 


who flourished about the end of the fourth 
century, after Christ, and wrote De - 
scriptio Orbis Terras, a general description 
of the earth ; Ora Maritima , an account 
of the Mediterranean coasts, etc. 

A Vi fan n a ( av-i-fa'na), a collective term 

xiviiauiid, for the birdg of any region. 

Avidia Tin (a-vel-ya'no), a town of S. 
xxvignanu Italy proy Potenza> Pop . 

12,570. 

A vi o-n nn (a-ve-nyon ; ancient, Avenio), 
nvignuil an old town 0 f g p France, 

capital of department Vaucluse, on the 
left bank of the Rhone; inclosed by lofty 
battlemented and turreted walls, well 
built, but with rather narrow streets. 
It is an archbishop’s see, and has a large 
and ancient cathedral on a rock over¬ 
looking the town, the immense palace in 
which the popes resided (now barracks), 
and other old buildings. The industries 
of the city are numerous and varied, the 
principal being connected with silk. The 
silk manufacture and the rearing of 
silkworms are the principal employments 
in the district. Here Petrarch lived 
several years, and made the acquaintance 
of Laura, whose tomb is in the Francis¬ 
can church. From 1309 to 1376 seven 
popes in succession, from Clement V to 
Gregory XI, resided in this city. After 
its purchase by Pope Clement VI in 1348 
Avignon and its district continued, with 
a few interruptions, under the rule of a 
vice-legate of the pope till 1791, when 
it was formally united to the French 
Republic. Pop. (1906 ) 35,356. 
Avignon Berries. French Ber- 

Avila (&'ve-ia), a town of Spain, 
capital of province of Avila, a 
modern division of Old Castile. See of 
the bishop suffragan of Santiago, with 
fine cathedral. Once one of the richest 
towns of Spain. Principal employment 
in the town, spinning; in the province, 
breeding sheep and cattle. Pop., town, 
11,885; province, 200,457. 

Avilfl Gil Gonzalez d\ a Spanish 
xiviici, antiquary and biographer, 

1577-1658; made historiographer of Cas¬ 
tile in 1612, and of the Indies in 1641. 
Most valuable works: Teatro de las 
Grandezas de Madrid , 1623, and Teatro 
Ecclesiastico , 1645-53. 

Avila y Zuniga 

Spanish general, diplomatist, and histo¬ 
rian ; a favorite of Charles V ; born about 
1490; died after 1552. His chief work, 
translated into five or six languages, was 
on the war of Charles V in Germany. 
AvilpQ (a-ve'les), a town of Northern 
XLViicD g pa j n> p r ov. Oviedo, with a 

good harbor. Pop. 12,763. 


Aviz an or( ^ er knighthood in Portu- 
9 gal, instituted by Sancho, its first 
king, and having as its original object 
the subjection of the Moors. 

Avlona (av-lo'nd),a seaport of Turk¬ 
ish Albania on the Adriatic, 
with a considerable trade. Pop. 6000. 

Avocado (av-o-ka'do) pear. See Alli¬ 
gator-pear. 

Av'ocet. See Avoset. 


Avo^adro’s (av-o-ga'dro) Law, i n 
xivugauiub physics> asserts that 

equal volumes of different gases at the 
same pressure and temperature contain 
an equal number of molecules. 

Avoirdupois (a-wur-du-poiz'; from 
xi v uii u u ol d Frenchi ii t . ‘ goq ds 

of weight’), a system of weights used for 
all goods except precious metals, gems, 
and medicines, and in which a pound con¬ 
tains 16 ounces, or 7000 grains, while a 
pound troy contains 12 ounces, or 5760 
grains. A hundredweight contains 112 
pounds avoirdupois; a cental of 100 
pounds is common in America, and is a 
legal British weight. 

Avnlfl (av'o-la), a seaport on the east 
of Sicily, with a trade in al¬ 
monds, sugar, etc. Pop. 16,235. 

Avon (a'von), the name of several 
rivers in England, of which the 
principal are: (1) The Upper Avon, 
rising in Leicestershire, and flowing s. w. 
into the Severn at Tewkesbury. Strat¬ 
ford-on-Avon lies on this river; (2) 
The Lower Avon, rising in Gloucester¬ 
shire, and falling into the Severn n. w. of 
Bristol; navigable as far as Bath; (3) 
In Monmouthshire; (4) In Wiltshire and 
Hampshire, entering the English Channel 
at Christchurch Bay. There are also 
streams of this name in Wales and Scot¬ 
land. 


AvOSet (av'o-set), a bird about the 
size of a lapwing, of the genus 
Recurvirostra ( R . avosetta), family 
Scolopacidse (snipes), order Grallatores. 
The bill is long, slender, elastic, and bent 
upward toward the tip, the legs long, 
the feet w r ebbed, and the plumage varie¬ 
gated with black and white. The bird 
feeds on worms and other small animals, 
which it scoops up from the mud of the 
marshes and fens that it frequents. It 
is found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 
America; but the American species is 
slightly different from the other. 
Avranches (a-vransh; Abrincce), 
a town of ancient 
France, department La Manche, about 3 
miles from the Atlantic. It formerly had 
a fine cathedral. Manufactures: lace, 
thread, and candles. Pop. (1906) 7186. 




Awe 


Ayacucho 


Awe a Scottish lake in Argyll¬ 
shire, about 28 miles long by 
2 broad, and communicating by the river 
Awe with Loch Etive. Ben Cruachan 
stands at its northern extremity. It has 
many islands and beautiful scenery, and 
abounds in trout, salmon, etc. 

Axe or Ax, a we ll* known tool for cut- 
ting or chipping wood, consist¬ 
ing of an iron head with an arched 
cutting edge of steel, which is in line 
with the wooden handle of the tool, and 
not at right angles to it as in the adze. 

Axd. See Absalom. 


Aya c+rmA a mineral, a variety of 
■flAC-bluue, ne phrite or jade, used by 

the natives of New Zealand and South 

Pacific Islands for axes, etc. See Jade. 

AxViolmP TsIp (aks'om), a sort of 

iixnoiine lbie island in England 

formed by the rivers Trent, Idle, and Don, 
in the northwest angle of Lincolnshire, 
17 miles long, 4i broad. 

Axil Axilla (aks'il, aks-il'a), in bot- 
XXAAAj any, the angle between the up¬ 
per side of a leaf and the stem or 
branch from which it springs. Buds 
usually appear in the axils, and flowers 
or flower-stalks growing in this way are 
called axillary. 

Axillifl tke s P ac e between the hu- 
9 merus and the chest below the 
shoulder joint, containing arteries, veins, 
brachial plexus of nerves and lymphatic 
glands. Outside the skin the surface is 
called the armpit. 

Av'irn a town of W. Africa, on the 
AX lnl > Gold Coast. 

A Yin it a (ask'i-nit), a mineral, a sili- 
cate of alumina, lime, etc., 
with boracic acid, deriving its name from 
the form of the crystals, the edges of 
which bear some resemblance to the edge 
of an axe. 

Axinomancv (aks-in'o-man-si), an 
AXmuiIIctllLy ancient method of 

divination by the movements of an axe 
(Gr. axime) balanced on a stake, or of an 
agate placed on a red-hot axe. The names 
of suspected persons being uttered, the 
movements at a particular name indi¬ 
cated the criminal. 


Axiom ( a ks'i-om), a universal prop¬ 
osition which the under¬ 
standing must perceive to be true as soon 
as it perceives the meaning of the words, 
and therefore called a self-evident truth: 
e. g., A is A. In mathematics axioms are 
those propositions which are assumed 
without proof, as being in themselves 
independent of proof, and which are made 
the basis of all the subsequent reasoning; 
as. ‘ The whole is greater than its part ’; 


‘ Things that are equal to the same thing 
are equal to one another.’ 

Axis ( a ks'is), the straight line, real 
or imaginary, passing through a 
body or magnitude, on which it revolves, 
or may be supposed to revolve; especially 
a straight line with regard to which the 
different parts of a magnitude, or several 
magnitudes, are symmetrically arranged; 
e. g., the axis of the earth , the imaginary 
line drawn through its two poles. 

In botany the word is also used, the 
stem being termed the ascending axis, the 
root the descending axis. 

In anatomy the name is given to the 
second vertebra from the head, that on 
which the atlas moves. See Atlas. 
Axis (C ervus axis), a species of Indian 
° deer, also known as the Spotted 
Hog-deer, of a rich fawn color, nearly 
black along the back, with white spots, 
and under parts white. Breeds freely in 
many parks in Europe. 

Axis, Cere-spinal. ^ e nal b ™ n rd an 0 d r 


central nervoussystem. 

AYrmn^tp-r (aks'mins-ter), a market 

xlAliillibiei town? En g land> county 

Devon, on the Axe, at one time celebrated 
for its woolen cloth and carpet manu¬ 
factures, and giving name to an expen¬ 
sive variety of carpet having a thick, soft 
pile, and also to a cheaper variety. Pop. 
(1911) 12,343. 

Axolotl ( a ks'o-lotl; Amblystoma mac- 
uldtum), a curious Mexican 
amphibian, not unlike a newt, from 8 to 
10 inches in length, with gills formed of 
three long ramified or branchlike proc¬ 
esses floating on each side of the neck. 
It reproduces by laying eggs, and was 
for some time regarded as a perfect ani¬ 
mal with permanent gills. It is said, 
however, that it frequently loses its gills 
like the other members of the genus, 
though some authorities maintain that 
the true axolotl never loses its gills, and 
that merely confusion with A. tigrinum 
has led to the belief, as this species 
sometimes retains its branchiae, though 
usually it loses them. The axolotl is 
esteemed a luxury by the Mexicans. 
There are a number of species of Ambly¬ 
stoma in N. America. 

Ax'um a * own * n Tigrg, a division of 
Abyssinia, once the capital of 
an important kingdom, and at one time 
the great depot of the ivory trade in the 
Red Sea. The site of the town still 
exhibits many remains of its former 
greatness; but modern Axum is only a 
miserable village. 

Avacueho (a-ya-ko'cho), the name of 
^ a department of Peru, and 

of its capital. The dept, has an area of 



Ayala 


Aytoun 


24,213 sq. miles. The town (formerly 
Guamanga or Huamanga) has a cathe¬ 
dral and a university, and a pop. of about 
20 , 000 . 

Ayala <*-ya'la), Pedro Lopez de, 
J Spanish historian and poet, 

chancellor of Castile in the second half 
of the fourteenth century, and the author 
of a history of Castile during 1350-96. 
He took an active part in the struggle be¬ 
tween Henry II and Pedro the Cruel, 
and was taken prisoner by the English 
in 1367. During his English captivity 
he wrote part of his chief poetical work, 
a Book in Rhyme concerning Court Life. 
'Died, 1407. 

Avamonte (i-&-mon'ta), a seaport 
town of Spain, province 
of Huelva, 2 miles from the mouth of the 
Guadiana. Pop. 7530. 

Avasoluk (a-yas'o-luk), the modern 
J representative of ancient 

Ephesus. 

Ave-ave an animal of Mada- 

J J gascar (Cheiromys Mada- 
gascariensis) , so called from its cry, now 
referred to the lemur family. It is about 
the size of a hare, has large, flat ears and 
a bushy tail, large eyes; long, sprawling 
fingers, the third so slender as to appear 
shriveled, and used to pull larvae from 
crevices in trees; color, musk-brown 
mixed with black and gray ash; feeds on 
grubs, fruits, etc., habits, nocturnal. 

Avpcha (a-yesh'a), daughter of Abu- 
nycziLa Bekr and favorite wife of 

Mohammed, the Arabian prophet, though 
she bore him no child ; born in 610 or 611. 
After his death she opposed the succession 
of Ali, but was defeated and taken pris¬ 
oner. She died at Medina in 677 or 678 
( A.H. 58). 

Avlp«ihnrv (alz'be-ri), county town 
XLyie&UUiy of Buckinghamshire, 
England, with a fine old parish church; 
chief industries, silk-throwing, printing, 
making condensed milk, and poultry-rear¬ 
ing for the London market. Previous 
to 1885 it and its hundred sent two mem¬ 
bers to parliament, and it still gives name 
to a parliamentary division. Pop. 11,048. 
Avloffe ( a ' lof )> Sir Joseph, an Eng- 
c lish antiquary, born about 
1708, died 1781; one of the first council 
of the Society of Antiquaries, a com¬ 
missioner for the preservation of state 
papers, and author and editor of several 
works, of which the best known is his 
Calendars of the Auntient Charters , etc. 
Atrmarac (i'm&-r&z), an Indian race 

iiymarab o£ Bolivia and PerUt speak . 

ing a language akin to the Quichua. 
Avmnn (a'mon), the surname of four 
brothers> Alard, Richard, 
Guiscard, and Renaud, who hold a first 


place among the heroes of the Charle¬ 
magne cycle of romance. Their exploits 
were the subject of a romance, Les Quatre 
Fils d'Aymon, by Huon de Villeneuve, a 
trouv£re of the thirteenth century, and 
Renaud is a leading figure in Ariosto’s 
Orlando. 

A.vr ( ar )> a town °f Scotland, capital 
J of Ayrshire, at the mouth of the 
river Ayr, near the Firth of Clyde. It 
was the site of a Roman station. Wil¬ 
liam the Lion built a castle here in 1197 
and constituted it a royal burgh in 1202; 
and the parliament which confirmed 
Robert Bruce’s title to the crown sat in 
Ayr. It is picturesquely situated, and 
ranks among the better class of provincial 
towns. Two bridges connect Ayr proper 
with the suburbs of Newton and Wallace- 
town. One of the bridges, opened in 1879, 
occupies the place of the ‘ New Brig ’ of 
Burns’s Brigs of Ayr the ‘ Auld Brig ’ 
(built 1252) being still serviceable for 
foot traffic. Carpets and lace curtains 
are manufactured. The harbor accom¬ 
modation is good, and there is a consider¬ 
able shipping trade, especially in coal, 
The house in which Burns was born 
stands within iy 2 miles of the town, 
between it and the church of Alloway 
(‘Alloway’s auld haunted kirk’), and a 
monument to him stands on a height be¬ 
tween the kirk and the bridge over the 
Doon. Pop. 28,624.—The county has a 
length along the Firth of Clyde and North 
Channel of 80 miles; area 1128 sq. miles. 
The surface is irregular, and a large por¬ 
tion of it hilly, but much of it is fertile. 
The principal streams are the Ayr, Stin- 
char, Girvan, Doon, Irvine, and Garnock. 
Coal and iron are abundant; and there 
are numerous collieries and ironworks. 
Limestone and freestone abound. The 
Ayrshire cows are celebrated as milkers, 
and the Dunlop cheese has a good repu¬ 
tation. Oats, turnips, and potatoes are 
grown and dairying is a large industry. 
Carpets, bonnets, and worsted shawls are 
made, and Ayrshire needlework and 
wooden snuff-boxes and similar articles 
are much esteemed. Chief towns, Ayr, 
Kilmarnock, and Irvine. Pop. 254,400. 
Avrer ( i,rer )> Jacob, a German 
J dramatist of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, who almost rivalled Hans Sachs in 
copiousness and importance. He was a 
citizen and legal official of Nuremberg, 
and died in 1605. His works, published 
at Nuremberg in 1618, under the title 
Opus Theatricnm, include thirty come¬ 
dies and tragedies and thirty-six humor¬ 
ous pieces. 

Avtmm (a'tun), Sir Robert, poet, 
J born in Fifeshire, Scotland, 

1570, died 1638. After studying at St. 




Aytoun 


Azerbijan 


Andrews he lived for some time in France, 
whence, in 1603, he addressed a panegy¬ 
ric in Latin verse to King James on his 
accession to the crown of England. By 
the grateful monarch he was appointed 
one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, 
and private secretary to the queen, re¬ 
ceiving also the honor of knighthood. At 
a later period of his life he was secre¬ 
tary to Henrietta Maria, queen of 
Charles I. His poems are few in num¬ 
ber, but are distinguished by elegance 
of diction. Several of his Latin poems 
are preserved in the work called D elides 
Poetarum Scotorum. 

AvtOUll William Edmondstoune, 
J 9 poet and prose writer, born 

at Edinburgh in 1813; died at Blackhills, 
Elgin, 1865. He issued a volume of 
poems in 1832, by 1836 was a contributor 
to Blackwood's Magazine , and published 
the Life and Times of Rickard I in 1840. 
In 1848 he published a collection of bal¬ 
lads entitled Lays of the Scottish Cava¬ 
liers, which has proved the most popular 
of all his works. It was followed in 1854 
by Firmilian , a Spasmodic Tragedy (in¬ 
tended to ridicule certain popular 
writers) ; the Bon Gaultier Ballads 
(parodies and other humorous pieces, in 
conjunction with Theodore Martin), 1855 ; 
in 1856 the poem Bothwell; and in sub¬ 
sequent years by Norman Sinclair, The 
Glenmutchkin Railway , and other stories. 
In 1858 he edited a critical and annotated 
collection of the Ballads of Scotland. A 
translation of the poems and ballads of 
Goethe was executed by him in con¬ 
junction with Theodore Martin. In 1845 
he became professor of rhetoric and Eng¬ 
lish literature in the University of 
Edinburgh—a position which he held till 
his death. 


Ayuntamiento li 

the town and village councils in Spain 
and Spanish America. 

Axm+liia (a-yu'the-a), the ancient 

Ayutnia capital of giami on the 

Menam, now a scene of splendid ruin. 
Azalea (a-za'le-a), a genus of plants, 
natural order Ericaceae, or 
heaths, remarkable for the beauty and 
fragrance of their flowers, and distin¬ 
guished from the rhododendrons chiefly 
by the flowers having five stamens instead 
of ten. . Many beautiful rhododendrons 
with deciduous leaves are known under 
the name of azalea in gardens. The 
azaleas are common in North America, 
and two species of these— A. viscosa and 
A. nudiflora —are well known in Britain. 
An Asiatic species, A. pontica , famous 
for the stupefying effect which its honey 
is said to have produced on Xenophon’s 



Azalea (Azalea indica). 


army, is also common in British gardens 
and shrubberies; and another, A. indica, 
is a brilliant greenhouse plant. 

A^amcrarVi (az'am-gar), a town of 
iiZamgdlli Ind . a ^ N w Provinces, 

capital of dist, of same name. Pop. about 
20,000. The district has an area of 2147 
sq. miles. 

AzeffllO (&d-zel'y5), Massimo Tapa- 
6 belli, Marquis d\ an Italian 
‘ admirable Crichton,’ artist, novelist, 
publicist, statesman, and soldier, born at 
Turin in 1798, died 1866. After gain¬ 
ing some reputation in Rome as a painter, 
he married the daughter of Manzoni, and 
achieved success in literature by his 
novels Ettore Fieramosco (1833) and 
Niccolo di Lapi (1841). These em¬ 
bodied much of the patriotic spirit, and 
in a short time he devoted himself ex¬ 
clusively to fostering the national senti¬ 
ment by personal action and by his writ¬ 
ings. Many of the reforms of Pius IX 
w’ere due to him. He commanded a 
legion in the Italian struggle of 1848, 
and was severely wounded at Vincenza. 
Chosen a member of the Sardinian Cham¬ 
ber of Deputies, he was, after the battle 
of Novara, made president of the cabinet, 
and in 1859 appointed to the military 
post of general and commissioner-extraor¬ 
dinary for the Roman States. 
Azerbiian (a-zer-bl-jan'), a province 
d of Northwestern Persia; 
area estimated at from 30,000 to 40,000 
sq. miles; pop. estimated at about 1,500,- 
000. It consists generally of lofty moun¬ 
tain ranges, some of which rise to a height 
of between 12,000 and 13,000 feet. Prin¬ 
cipal rivers; the Aras or Araxes, and the 
Kizil-Uzen, which enter the Caspian; 
smaller streams discharge themselves 
within the province into the great salt 
lake of Urumiyah. Agricultural prod¬ 
ucts ; wheat, barley, maize, fruit, cotton, 
tobacco, and grapes. Horses, cattle, 
sheep, and camels are reared in consider¬ 
able numbers. Chief minerals: iron, 





Azimgurh 


Aztecs 


lead, copper, salt, saltpeter, and marble. 
Tabreez is the capital. 

Azimgurh (az'im-gur). See Azam- 

A71*mutli (az'i-muth), of a heavenly 
minium body, the arc of the horizon 
comprehended between the meridian of 
the observer and a vertical circle passing 
through the center of the body. The azi¬ 
muth and altitude give the exact position 
of the body. 

Azincourt Same a8 

Azof ( a ’ z °f)> a town in the Russian 
^ UA government of Ekaterinoslav, 
upon an island at the mouth of the Don, 
where it flows into the Sea of Azof; 
formerly a place of extensive trado, but 
its harbor has become almost sanded up. 
Pop. 27,000. 

Azof Sea 0F ( anc - Palus Mceotis ), 
u > an arm of the Black Sea, with 


which it is united by the Straits of 
Kertch or Kaflfa; length about 170, 
breadth about 80 miles; greatest depth 
not more than 8 fathoms. The w. part, 
called the Putrid Sea, is separated from 
the main expanse by a long, sandy belt 
called Arabat, along which runs a mili¬ 
tary road. The sea teems with fish. The 
Don and other rivers enter it, and its 
waters are very fresh. 

Azoio (a-zo'ik), ‘without life,’ a term 
a ppij e( j t 0 roc k s devoid of fossils. 

Azores ( a " z o rz/ or a-zo'res), or West- 
Z 16 U 1 C& ERN i SLANDS> a group belong¬ 
ing to and 900 miles west of Portugal, 
in the North Atlantic Ocean. They are 


nine in number, and form three distinct 
groups—a N. w., consisting of Flores and 
Corvo ; a central, consisting of Terceira, 
Sao Jorge, Pico, Fayal, and Graciosa; 
and a s. e., consisting of Sao Miguel (or 
St. Michael) and Santa Maria. The 
total area is about 900 sq. miles: Sao 
Miguel (containing the capital Ponta 
Delgada), Pico and Terceira are the 
largest. The islands, which are volcanic 
and subject to earthquakes, are . ap¬ 
parently of comparatively recent origin, 
and are conical, lofty, precipitous, and 
picturesque. The most remarkable sum¬ 
mit is the peak of Pico, about 7600 feet 
high. There are numerous hot springs. 
They are covered with luxuriant vegeta¬ 
tion, and diversified with woods, corn¬ 
fields, vineyards, lemon and orange 
groves, and rich open pastures. The mild 
and somewhat humid climate, combined 
with the natural fertility of the soil, 
brings all kinds of vegetable products 
rapidly to perfection, among the most 
important being grain, oranges, pine¬ 
apples, bananas, potatoes, yams, beans, 
coffee, and tobacco. The inhabitants are 


mainly of Portuguese descent, indolent 
and devoid of enterprise. Principal ex¬ 
ports : wine and brandy, oranges, maize, 
beans, pineapples, cattle. The climate is 
recommended as suitable for consumptive 
patients. The Azores were discovered by 
Cabral about 1431, shortly after which 
date they were taken possession of and 
colonized by the Portuguese. When first 
visited they were uninhabited, and had 
scarcely any other animals except birds, 
particularly hawks, to which, called in 
Portuguese adores, the islands owe their 
name. Pop. 256,474. 

Azote ( az ’ot), a name formerly given 
to nitrogen ; hence < substances 
containing nitrogen and forming part of 
the structure of plants and animals are 
known as azotized bodies. Such are al¬ 
bumen, fibrin, casein, gelatin, urea, 
creatin, etc. 

AZOV. See Azof. 

AznpiHa (ath-pa'i-ti-a), a town of N. 
xx^ciLid, E Spain> prov G u ip UZC oa. 

Near it is the convent of Loyola, a large 
edifice, now a museum. Pop. 6066. 
A7rael (az'ra-el), in Mohammedan 
mythology, the angel of death. 
Az+ppc (az'teks), a race of people who 
settled in Mexico early in the 
fourteenth century, ultimately extended 
their dominion over a large territory, and 
were still extending their supremacy at 
the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, 
by whom they were speedily subjugated. 
Their political organization, termed by 
the Spanish writers an absolute mon¬ 
archy, appears to have consisted of a 
military chief exercising important, but 
not unlimited, power in civil affairs, in 
which the council of chiefs and periodic 
assemblies of the judges had also a voice. 
Their most celebrated ruler was Monte¬ 
zuma, who was reigning when the 
Spaniards arrived, about the middle of 
the fifteenth century. It is inferred that 
considerable numbers of them lived in 
large communal residences, and that land 
was held and cultivated upon the com¬ 
munal principle. Slavery and polygamy 
were both legitimate, but the children of 
slaves were regarded as free. Although 
not possessing the horse, ox, etc., they 
had a considerable knowledge of agricul¬ 
ture, maize and the agave being the chief 
produce. Silver, lead, tin, and copper 
were obtained from mines, and gold from 
the surface and river beds, but iron was 
unknown to them, their tools being of 
bronze and obsidian. In metal-work, 
feather-work, weaving, and pottery, they 
possessed a high degree of skill. To re¬ 
cord events they used an unsolved hiero¬ 
glyphic writing, and their lunar calendars 



Aztecs 


Azurite 


were of unusual accuracy. Two special 
deities claimed their reverence: Hintzilo- 
pochtli, the god of war, propitiated with 
human sacrifices; and Quetzalcoatl, the 
beneficent god of light and air, with whom 
at first the Aztecs were disposed to 
identify Cortez. Their temples, with 
large terraced pyramidal bases, were in 
the charge of an exceedingly large priest¬ 
hood, with whom lay the education of the 
young. As a civilization of apparently 
independent origin, yet closely resembling 
in many features the archaic oriental 
civilizations, the Aztec civilization is of 
the first interest, but in most accounts of 
it a large speculative element has to be 
discounted. 


A 711 li TIP A711T1 TIP (a z'u-ll n, az'u- 

iizuime, iizuime rin)> light _ 51ue 

dyes derived from coal-tar. 

Azure ( az ' ar )> the heraldic term for 
the color blue, represented in 
engraving by horizontal lines. 

A 7iiri tip (az'u-rin; Leuciscus casru- 
leus), a freshwater fish of 
the same genus as the roach, chub, 
and minnow, found in some parts of 
Europe, but rare in Britain ; called also 
Blue Roach. 

Azurite a blue mineral, a 

carbonate of copper, occurring 
in crystals which are rather brittle; 
called also Blue Malachite. Also a name 
of lazulite. 





















































































\ 





































































































. 
































































































. 


































































\ 












































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































. 























































































































































































































I 



I 




























T> is the second letter and the first con- 
■ D sonant in the English and most other 
alphabets. It is a mute and labial, pro¬ 
nounced solely by the lips, and is dis¬ 
tinguished from p by being sonant, that 
is, produced by the utterance of voice as 
distinguished from breath. 

T> in music, the seventh note of the 
model diatonic scale or scale of C. 
It is called the leading note, as there is al¬ 
ways a feeling of suspense when it is 
sounded until the keynote is heard. 
■Raarlpv Franz Xaver von (frantz 
DddUCi, z » £ er £ oq fodder), German 

philosopher, and the greatest speculative 
Roman Catholic theologian of modern 
times; born in Munich, 1765, died 1841. 
He studied engineering, became superin¬ 
tendent of mines, and was ennobled for 
his services. He was deeply interested 
in the religious speculations of Eckhart, 
St. Martin, and Bohme, and in 1826 was 
appointed professor of philosophy and 
speculative theology in the University of 
Munich. During the last three years of 
his life he was interdicted from lecturing 
for opposing the interference in civil mat¬ 
ters of the Roman Catholic Church. 
Baal (ba'al), Bel, a Hebrew and gen- 
eral Semitic word, which origin¬ 
ally appears to have been generic, signify¬ 
ing simply lord, and to have been applied 
to many different divinities, or. with 
qualifying epithets, to the same divinity 
regarded in different aspects and. as ex¬ 
ercising different functions. Thus in Hos., 
ii, 16, it is applied to Jehovah himself, 
while Baal-berith (the Covenant-lord) 
was the god of the Shechemites, and 
Baal-zebub (the Fly-god) the idol of the 
Philistines at Ekron. Baal was the sa¬ 
cred title applied to the Sun as the prin¬ 
cipal male deity of the Phoenicians and 
their descendants, the Carthaginians, as 
well as of the ancient Canaanitish na¬ 
tions, and was worshiped as the supreme 
ruler and vivifier of nature. The word 
enters into the composition of many He¬ 
brew, Phoenician, and Carthaginian names 
of persons and places: thus, Jerubaal , 
Hasdrubal (help of Baal), Hannibal 
(grace of Baal), and Baal-Hammon, 
Baal-Thamar, etc. 

22—1 


"RqqIVipV (bal'bek: ancient Heliopolis, 
Dddiucts. city of the sun), a place in 
Syria, in a fertile valley at the foot of 
Antilibanus, 40 miles from Damascus, 
famous for its magnificent ruins. Of 
these the chief is the temple of the Sun, 
built either by Antoninus Pius or by Sep- 
timius Severus. Some of the blocks used 
in its construction are 60 ft. long by 12 
thick; and its 54 columns, of which 6 are 
still standing, were 72 ft. high and 22 in 
circumference. Near it is a temple of 
Jupiter, of smaller size, though still larger 
than the Parthenon at Athens, and 
there are other structures of an elabor¬ 
ately ornate type. Originally a center of 
the Sun-worship, it became a Roman 
colony under Julius Caesar; was gar¬ 
risoned by Augustus, and acquired in¬ 
creasing renown under Trajan as the seat 
of an oracle. Under Constantine its 
temples became churches, but after being 
sacked by the Arabs in 748, and more 
completely pillaged by Timur (Tamerlane) 
in 1401, it sank into hopeless decay. The 
work of destruction was completed by an 
earthquake in 1759. 


Baal-zebub. See Beelzebub. 

Baba (bd'ba), a cape near the north¬ 
west point of Asia Minor. 
Baba flap* (ba-ba-dag'), a town of 
& Roumania, capital of the 
Dobrudsha, carrying on a considerable 
Black Sea trade. Pop. about 3500. 
'RflhhflO’e (bab'aj), Charles, an 
® English mathematician 
and the inventor of the calculating 
machine: born in 1792: died in 1871. He 
graduated at Cambridge in 1814, and was 
nrofessor of mathematics for eleven years, 
but delivered no lectures. As early as 
1812 he conceived the idea of calculating 
numerical tables by machinery, and in 
1823 he received a grant from govern¬ 
ment. for the construction of such a 
machine.. After a series of experiments 
lasting eight years, and an expenditure of 
.885,000 (.830,000 of which was sunk by 
himself, the balance voted by govern¬ 
ment), Babbage abandoned the undertak¬ 
ing in favor of a much more enlarged 
work, an analytical engine, worked with 


Babbit Metal 


Baboon 


cards like the jacquard loom; but the 
project was never completed. The in- 
completed machine is now in the South 
Kensington Museum. 

Babbit Metal ElaSk*^ 

alloying together certain proportions of 
copper, tin, and zinc or antimony, used 
with the view of as far as possible ob¬ 
viating friction in the bearings of jour¬ 
nals, cranks, axles, etc., invented by Isaac 
Babbit (1799-1862), a goldsmith of 
Taunton, Massachusetts. 

Ba'bel, the same as Babylon. 

"Ra'hpl Tower of, according to the 
a 9 11th chapter of Genesis, a 
structure in the Plain of Shinar, Mesopo¬ 
tamia, commenced by the descendants of 
Noah subsequent to the deluge, but not 
completed. It has commonly been iden¬ 
tified with the great temple of Belus or 
Bel that was one of the chief edifices in 
Babylon, and the huge mound called Birs 
Nimrud is generally regarded as its site, 
though another mound, which to this day 
bears the name of Babil, has been as¬ 
signed by some as its site. Babel means 
literally ‘ gate of God.’ The meaning 
4 confusion ’ assigned to it in the Bible 
really belongs to a word of similar form. 
See Babylon. 

Bab-el-Mandeb ££» ^ 

gerous to small craft), a strait, 15 miles 
wide, between the Indian Ocean and the 
Red Sea, formed by projecting points of 
Arabia in Asia, and Abyssinia in Africa. 
The island of Perim is here. 

■Rflhpr (ba'ber), the first Grand Mogul, 
■° auCA and the founder of the Mogul 
dynasty in Hindustan, born in 1483, died 
1530. He was a grandson of the great 
Tartar prince Timur or Tamerlane, and 
was sovereign of Cabul. He several 
times invaded Hindustan, and in 1525 
finally defeated and killed Sultan Ibra¬ 
him, the last Hindu emperor of the 
Patan or Afghan race. He made many 
improvements, social and political, in 
his empire, and left a valuable auto¬ 
biography. 

Babeuf ( ba ' beuf K Franqois Noel, a 
personage connected with the 
French revolution, born in 1764. He 
started a democratic journal at Paris, 
called Le Tribun du Peuple, par Grac¬ 
chus Babeuf, which advocated commun¬ 
istic views, and wrote with great severity 
against the Jacobins. After the fall of 
Robespierre, to which he powerfully con¬ 
tributed, he openly attacked the terror¬ 
ists, and advocated the most democratic 
principles. He was accused of a con¬ 
spiracy against the directorial govern¬ 


ment, condemned to death, and guillotined 
in 1797. 

"Ra Vi Tier ton Anthony, a Catholic 
D mg ion, gentleman of Derby¬ 
shire, who was accused with others of his 
own persuasion of plotting to assassinate 
Queen Elizabeth, and deliver Mary, Queen 
of Scots. They were executed in 1586. 

Babiroussa Se * 

"R a Vi cm tbe doctrines of a Moham- 
J5du i&iu, medan sect whose head _ 

quarters is Persia, founded by Seyd Mo¬ 
hammed Ali about 1843. He took the 
name of Bab-ed-din, 4 the gate of the 
faith,’ and afterwards that of Nokteh, 

4 the point,’ as not merely the recipient of 
a new divine revelation, but the focus in 
which all preceding dispensations would 
converge. One of his most successful 
disciples was a highly-gifted woman, 
Gurred-ul-Ayn, 4 consolation of the eyes,’ 
who perished with many others during a 
persecution in 1852. The Bab himself 
had been executed about two years be¬ 
fore this, and was succeeded by a noble 
youth, Mirza Yahya. The sect holds 
that all individual existence is an emana¬ 
tion from the supreme deity, by whom it 
will be ultimately reabsorbed. The moral¬ 
ity of the sect is pure and cheerful, and it 
shows great advancement in the treat¬ 
ment of woman. Moses, Christ, and 
Mohammed are acknowledged by it as 
prophets, though only mere precursors of 
the Bab. A later prophet was Baba 
Allah (‘ Glory of God ’), under whom the 
aim was to discover the truth and discard 
the pernicious in every religion. The 
number of adherents is stated to exceed 
2,000,000, and Babism is stated to have 
been the chief agency in the 1909 revolu¬ 
tion in Persia. 

Ba'b00 or ^ ABU > a Hindu title of 
9 respect equivalent to sir or 
master, usually given to wealthy and edu¬ 
cated native gentlemen, especially when 
of the mercantile class. 

"Ro'hnrm (ba-bon'), the common name 
applied to a division of old- 
world quadrumana (apes and monkeys), 
comprehending the genera Cynocephalus 
and Papio. They have elongated abrupt 
muzzles like a dog, strong tusks or canine 
teeth, usually short tails, cheek-pouches, 
small, deep eyes with large eyebrows, and 
naked callosities on the buttocks. Their 
hind and fore feet are well proportioned, 
so that they run easily on all fours, but 
they do not maintain themselves in 
an upright posture with facility. Thev 
are generally of the size of a moderately 
large dog, but the largest, the mandrill, is, 
when erect, nearly of the height of a man. 
They are almost all African, ugly, sullen, 




Babour 


Babylonia 


fierce, lascivious, and gregarious, defend¬ 
ing themselves by throwing stones, dirt, 
etc. They live on fruits and roots, eggs 
and insects. They include the chacma, 
drill, common baboon and mandrill. The 
chacma or pig-tailed baboon ( Cynocepha- 
lus porcarius) is found in considerable 
numbers in parts of the S. African col¬ 
onies, where the inhabitants wage war 



Baboon (CynocephSdus babouin). 


against them on account of the ravages 
they commit in the fields and gardens. 
The common baboon ( C . babouin) inhab¬ 
its a large part of Africa farther to the 
north. It is of a brownish-yellow color, 
while the chacma is grayish black, or in 
parts black. The hamadryas ( C . hama- 
drayas) of Abyssinia is characterized by 
long hair, forming a sort of shoulder cape, 
The black baboon ( G. niger ) is found in 
Celebes. 

Babour (ba'bqr). Same as Baber. 

Bflhrius (ba'bri-us), a Greek poet who 
flourished during the second 
or third century of the Christian era, and 
wrote a number of ^Esopian fables. 
Several versions of these made during 
the middle ages have come down to us as 
JEsop’s fables. In 1840 a manuscript 
containing 120 fables by Babrius, pre¬ 
viously unknown, was discovered on 
Mount Athos. 

■Rahil vanes (ba-bu-ya'nes) Islands, 
Dduirycuica a group - n the Pacific 

Ocean, between Luzon and Formosa, be¬ 
longing to Spain. Pop. about 8000. 
■Rahvln-n (bab'i-lon), the capital of 
x>cl * Babylonia, on both sides of 

the Euphrates, one of the largest and 


most splendid cities of the ancient world, 
now a scene of ruins, and earth-mounds 
containing them. Babylon was a royal 
city more than 2000 years before the 
Christian era; but the old city was al¬ 
most entirely destroyed in 683 b.c. A 
new city was built by Nebuchadnezzar 
nearly a century later. This was in the 
form of a square, each side 15 miles long, 
with walls of such immense height and 
thickness as to constitute one of the 
wonders of the world. It contained 
splendid edifices, large gardens and 
pleasure-grounds, especially the ‘ hanging- 
gardens,’ a sort of lofty, terraced struc¬ 
ture supporting earth enough for trees to 
grow, and the celebrated tower of Babel 
or temple of Belus, rising by stages to 
the height of 625 ft. (See Babel, Tower 
of.) After the city was taken by Cyrus 
in 538 b.c., and Babylonia made a Per¬ 
sian province, it began to decline, and 
had suffered severely by the time of 
Alexander the Great. He intended to 
restore it. but was prevented by his 
death, which took place here in 323 b.c., 
from which time its decay was rapid. 
Interesting discoveries have been made 
on its site in recent times, more es¬ 
pecially of numerous and valuable in¬ 
scriptions in the cuneiform or arrow¬ 
head character. The modern town of 
Hillah is believed to represent the an¬ 
cient city, and the plain here for miles 
round is studded with vast mounds of 
earth and brick and imposing ruins. The 
greatest mound is Birs Nimrud, about 6 
miles from Hillah. It rises nearly 200 
ft., is crowned by a ruined tower, and is 
commonly believed to be the remains of 
the ancient temple of Belus. 

Babylon Long Island, New York, a 
J * favorite summer resort; 37 
miles east of Queens Borough ; has fish¬ 
ing and oyster industries. Pop. 2600. 

Babylonia ( now ^ ra Arabi), an old 
J Asiatic empire occupying 

the region watered by the lower course 
of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and by 
their combined stream. The inhabitants, 
though usually designated Babylonians, 
were sometimes called Chaldeans, and it 
is thought that the latter name represents 
a superior caste who at a comparatively 
late period gained influence in the coun¬ 
try. At the earliest period of which we 
have record the whole valley of the Tigris 
and Euphrates was inhabited by tribes 
apparently of Turanian or Tartar origin. 
Along with these, however, there early 
existed an intrusive Semitic element, 
which gradually increased in number till 
at the time the Babylonians and Assyr¬ 
ians (the latter being a kindred people) 
became known to the western historians 



Babylonia 


Babyroussa 


they were essentially Semitic peoples. 
The great city Babylon (which see), or 
Babel, was the capital of Babylonia, 
which was called by the Hebrews Shinar. 
There seem originally to have been two 
sections; Accad, which lay to the north, 
and Shumer, which lay to the south, and 
the people are often called Accadians. 
There is some reason to believe that 
civilization began here 7000 or 8000 
years before Christ, as estimated by 
Professor Hilprecht. If so, Babylonia 
may have been the earliest of civilized 
states, its only rival in antiquity being 
Egypt. The country was, as it still is, 
exceedingly fertile, and must have 
anciently supported a dense population. 
It was then widely irrigated, though the 
canals have long sunk into decay. The 
chief cities, besides Babylon, were Ur, 
Calneh, Erech, and Sippara. Babylonia 
and Assyria were often spoken of together 
as Assyria. 

The discovery and interpretation of the 
cuneiform inscriptions have enabled the 
history of Babylonia to be carried back 
to at least 4000 B.C., at which period the 
inhabitants had attained a considerable 
degree of civilization, and the country 
was ruled by a number of kings or 
princes each in his own city. In later 
centuries single monarchs rose at times 
to the control of the whole country, and 
invaded the surrounding nations; the 
earliest and most famous of these being 
Sargon, about 3800 B.c. Several hun¬ 
dred years previous to 2000 b.c. Baby¬ 
lonia was conquered by and held subject 
to the neighboring Elam. It then regained 
its independence, and for nearly a thou¬ 
sand years it was the foremost state of 
Western Asia in power, as well as in 
science, art, civilization. The rise of the 
Assyrian Empire brought about the 
decline of Babylonia, which later was 
under Assyrian domination, though with 
intervals of independence. Tiglath- 
Pileser II of Assyria (745-727) made 
himself master of Babylonia; but the 
conquest of the country had to be re¬ 
peated by his successor, Sargon, who ex¬ 
pelled the Babylonian king, Merodach- 
Baladan, and all but finally subdued the 
country, the complete subjugation being 
effected by Sennacherib. After some 
sixty years a second Babylonian empire 
arose under Nabopolassar, who, joining 
the Medes against the Assyrians, freed 
Babylon from the superiority of the latter 
power, 625 B.c. The new empire was at 
its height of power and glory under 
Nabopolassar’s son, Nebuchadnezzar 
(604—561), who subjected Jerusalem, 
Tyre, Phoenicia, and even Egypt, and 
carried his dominion to the shores of the 


Mediterranean and northwards to the 
Armenian mountains. The capital, 
Babylon, was rebuilt by him, and then 
formed one of the greatest and most 
magnificent cities the world has ever seen. 
He was succeeded by his son Evil-Mero- 
dach, but the dynasty soon came to an 
end, the last king being Nabonidus, who 
came to the throne in b.c. 555, and made 
his son, Belshazzar, co-ruler with him. 
Babylon was taken by Cyrus the Persian 
monarch in 538, and the second Baby¬ 
lonian empire came to an end, Babylonia 
being incorporated in the Persian empire. 
Its subsequent history was similar to 
that of Assyria. 

The account of the civilization, arts, 
and social advancement of the Assyrians 
already given in the article Assyria may 
be taken as generally applying also to the 
Babylonians, though certain differences 
existed between the two peoples. In 
Babylonia stone was not to be had, and 
consequently brick was the almost uni¬ 
versal building material. Sculpture was 
thus less developed in Babylonia than in 
Assyria; and painting more. Babylonian 
art had also more of a religious char¬ 
acter than that of Assyria, and the chief 
edifices found in ruins are temples. 
Weaving and pottery were carried to 
high perfection. Astronomy was cul¬ 
tivated from the earliest times. The 
Babylonians had a number of deities, but 
eventually the chief or national deity was 
Bel Merodach, originally the Sun-god. 
Education was well attended to, and 
there were schools and libraries in con¬ 
nection with the temples. The later As¬ 
syrian culture was based on that of 
Babylonia, which had been a nation of 
writers and students for many earlier 
centuries. 

Babylonish Cap ,T i ™' y -? te , rm u ?“ a . ]I y 

J applied to the deportation 

of the two tribes of the kingdom of Judah 
to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, 588 b.c. 
The duration of this captivity is usually 
reckoned as seventy years, from the first 
deportation in 606 to Cyrus’s proclama¬ 
tion in 536. A great part of the ten 
tribes of Israel had been previously taken 
captive to Assyria. 

Babyroussa (bab-i-rps'a; a Malay 

J word signifying stag- 

hog), a species of wild hog ( Sus or 
Porcus Babyrussa ), a native of the In¬ 
dian Archipelago. From the outside of 
the upper jaw spring two teeth 12 inches 
long, curving upwards and backwards 
like horns, and almost touching the fore¬ 
head. The tusks of the lower jaw also 
appear externally, though they are not so 
long as those of the upper jaw. Along 
the back are some weak bristles, and on 



Baccarat 


Bach 


the rest of the body only a sort of wool. 
These animals live in herds, feed on herb- 



Babyroussa (Sus Babyrussa). 

age, are sometimes tamed, and their flesh 
is well flavored. 

*Rcippornf (bak'a-rat or bak-a-rd'), a 
DdLLdiai gambling game of Fr ench 

origin, played by any number of players, 
or rather bettors, and a banker. The 
latter deals two cards to each player and 
two to himself, and covers the stakes of 
each with an equal sum. The cards are 
then examined, and according to the 
scores made the players take their own 
stake and the banker’s or the latter 
takes all or a certain number of the 
stakes. 

Bacchanalia, ", i r ’ I0N 7 SI - A „. <jf*r 

7 na li-a ; d 1 - 0 -n i z l-a ), 
feasts in honor of Bacchus or Dionysus, 
characterized by licentiousness and rev¬ 
elry, and celebrated in ancient Athens. 
In the processions were bands of Bac¬ 
chantes of both sexes, who inspired by 
real or feigned intoxication, wandered 
about rioting and dancing. They were 
clothed in fawn-skins, crowned with ivy, 
and bore in their hands thyrsi, that is, 
spears entwined with ivy, or having a 
pine-cone stuck on the point. These 
feasts passed from the Greeks to the 
Romans, who celebrated them with still 
greater dissoluteness till the senate 
abolished them B.c. 187. 

Bacchante 0 >ak-an'te) a person 

taking part in revels in 

honor of Bacchus. See Bacchanalia. 

'RarrVnVHonP (bak-kil'yo-na), a river 
isaccmgTione of Northern 1 1 a 1 y, 

which rises in the Alps, passes through 
the towns of Vicenza and Padua, and 
enters the Adriatic near Chioggia, after 
a course of about 90 miles. 

"Rapplin«l (bak'us: in Greek, gen- 
■ Dd ' erally named Dionysos), the 

god of wine, son of Zeus (Jupiter) and 
S§mSle. He first taught the cultivation 


of the vine and the preparation of wine. 
To spread the knowledge of his invention 
he traveled over various countries and 
received in every quarter divine honors. 
Drawn by lions (some say panthers, 
tigers, or lynxes), he began his march, 
which resembled a triumphal procession. 
Those who opposed him were severely 
punished, but on those who received him 
hospitably he bestowed rewards. His 
love was shared by several; but Ariadne, 
whom he found deserted upon Naxos, 
alone was elevated to the dignity of a 
wife, and became a sharer of his immor¬ 
tality. In art he is represented with the 
round, soft, and graceful form of a 
maiden rather than with that of a young 
man. His long, waving hair is knitted 
behind in a knot, and wreathed with 
sprigs of ivy and vine leaves. He is 
usually naked: sometimes he has an 
ample mantle hung negligently round his 
shoulders; sometimes a fawn-skin hangs 
across his breast. He is often accom¬ 
panied by Silenus, Bacchantes, Satyrs, 
etc. See Bacchanalia. 


Bacchylides 


(bak-kil'i-dez), born in 
the island of Cos, 
about the middle of the fifth century b.c., 
the last of the great lyric poets of Greece, 
a nephew of Simonides and a contempo¬ 
rary of Pindar. Of his odes, hymns, 
pagans, triumphal songs, only a few frag¬ 
ments remain. 


Bacciocchi (wt-chok'g), maria 

Anne Eliza Bona¬ 
parte, sister of Napoleon, born at Ajac¬ 
cio 1777, died near Trieste 1820; a great 
patroness of literature and art. She 
married Captain Bacciocchi, who in 1805 
was created Prince of Lucca and Piom- 
bino. She virtually ruled these prin¬ 
cipalities herself, and as Grand-duchess 
of Tuscany she enacted the part of a 
queen. She fell with the empire. 

Baccio Bella Porta « a n 

Italian 

painter, better known under the name of 
Fra Bartolommeo, born at Florence 1469, 
died there 1517. He studied painting in 
Florence, and acquired a more perfect 
knowledge of art from the works of 
Leonardo da Vinci. He was an admirer 
and follower of Savonarola, on whose 
death he took the Dominican habit, and 
assumed the name of Fra Bartolommeo. 
He was the friend of Michael Angelo and 
Raphael; painted many religious pictures, 
among them a Saint Mark and Saint Se¬ 
bastian, which are greatly admired. His 
coloring, in vigor and brilliancy, comes 
near to that of Titian and Giorgione. 
Bach. Johann Sebastian, one 

of the greatest of German musi¬ 
cians, was born in 1685, at Eisenach; 




Bacharach 


Bacillus 


died in 1750, at Leipzig. Being the son 
of a musician, he was early trained in the 
art, and soon distinguished himself. In 
1703 he was engaged as a player at the 
court of Weimar, and subsequently he 
was musical director to the Duke of 
Anhalt-Kothen, and afterwards held an 



Johann Sebastian Bach. 


appointment at Leipzig. He paid a visit 
to Potsdam on the invitation of Freder¬ 
ick the Great. As a player on the harp¬ 
sichord and organ he had no equal among 
his contemporaries; but it was not till a 
century after his death that his great¬ 
ness as a composer was fully recognized. 
His compositions breathe an original in¬ 
spiration, and are largely of the religious 
kind. They include pieces, vocal and in¬ 
strumental, for the organ, piano, and 
stringed and keyed instruments; also 
church cantatas, oratorios, masses, pas¬ 
sion music, etc. More than fifty musical 
performers have proceeded from his 
family. Sebastian himself had eleven 
sons, all distinguished as musicians. The 
most renowned were the following 
Wilhelm Friedemann, born in 1710 
at Weimar; died at Berlin in 1784. He 
was one of the most scientific harmonists 
and most skillful organists.— Karl Phil¬ 
lip Emmanuel, born in 1714 at Wei¬ 
mar ; died in 1788 at Hamburg. He 
composed mainly for the piano, and pub¬ 
lished melodies for Gellert’s hymns. 

Bacharach (ba7i'a-ra70 a sm a l 1 

place of 1900 inhabitants 
on the Rhine, 12 miles s. of Coblenz. 
The vicinity produces excellent wine, 
which was once highly esteemed. The 
view from the ruins of the castle is one 
of the sublimest on the Rhine. 

Bache (batch), Alexander Dallas, 
a grandson of Benjamin Frank¬ 
lin, born in Philadelphia, 1806, and in 


1825 a graduate of the U. S. Military 
Academy. Professor in the University 
of Pennsylvania 1828-36, and president 
of Girard College trustees 1836-42, he 
was afterwards superintendent of the 
United States coast survey. He died in 
1867. 


‘RarTip Franklin, cousin of the pre- 
jjcili ic, b orn j n Philadelphia in 

1792, graduated at the University of 
Pennsylvania; professor of chemistry in 
Franklin Institute in 1826, in College of 
Pharmacy in 1831 and in Jefferson 
Medical College in 1841; president of 
the American Philosophical Society in 
1853. Was one of the authors of Wood 
and Bache’s Dispensatory of the United 
States. Died in 1864. 

■RanTiAQ-n (ba-che-an'), an island of the 
x>dCiiedil j) utc h East Indies, in the 

Ternate group. It is mountainous and 
fertile, but inhabited only along the 
coast, having few people in the interior. 
"RnrTipllpr (bach'e-ler), Irving, jour- 

£>cU/iieiiei naligt and author? born at 

Pierpoint, New York, in 1869; became 
one of the editors of the New York World. 
He is the author of numerous tales and 
poems, also the novels: The Master of 
Silence, The Still House of O'Darroic, 
Eben Holden, which had an enormous 
sale; also D’ri and I, and Keeping up 
with Lizzie, a satire on American extrav¬ 
agance. 

Hapliplnr (bach'e-lor), a term ap- 
jjctunciui plied anciently to a person 
in the first or probationary stage of 
knighthood, who had not yet raised his 
standard in the field. It also denotes a 
person who has taken the first degree in 
the liberal arts and sciences or in divin¬ 
ity or law at a college or university, 
and in medicine in England and its 
colonies; or a man of any age who has 
not been married.—A knight bachelor is 
one who has been raised to the dignity 
of a knight without being made a mem¬ 
ber of any of the orders of chivalry, such 
as the Garter or the Thistle. 

Bachelor’s Buttons, * h c e we ;> b b > u e t : 

ter-cup ( Ranunculus acris) , with white 
or yellow blossoms, common in gardens. 

Bacillaria (ba-sil-la'ri-a), a genus of 
microscopical algae be¬ 
longing to the class Diatomaceae, the sili¬ 
ceous remains of which abound in creta¬ 


ceous, tertiary, and more recent geolog¬ 
ical deposits. 

BacillllS (ba-sil'us), the name applied 
to certain minute rod-like 
microscopical organisms (Bacteria) which 
often appear in putrefactions, and one of 
which is known to hold a constant 
causative relation to tubercle in the lung 



Back 


Bacon 


and to be present in all cases of phthisis. 
Others are known to be connected with 



Bacilli of ordinary Putrefaction, highly mag¬ 
nified. 

A. 1, single bacilli; 2, bacilli forming threads 
and developing spores. The bright oval body in 
the center of each bacillus is a spore. B. 1, or¬ 
dinary form without spores ; 2, with spores ; 3, 
free spores ; 4, a mass of spores. (After Klein.) 

anthrax, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and 
other epidemic diseases. See Bacteria. 
Back Admiral Sir George, an emi- 
9 nent English Arctic discoverer, 
horn 1796, died 1878. He accompanied 
Franklin and Richardson in their north¬ 
ern expeditions, and in 1833-34 headed an 
expedition to the Arctic Ocean through 
the Hudson Bay Company’s territory, on 
which occasion he wintered at the Great 
Slave Lake, and discovered the Back or 
Great Fish River. 

Backergunge. See Bakarganj. 
TWkfrflmmon (bak-gam'un), a game 

-DacKgammoii played by two persons 

upon a table or board made for the pur¬ 
pose, with pieces or men, dice-boxes, and 
dice. The table is in two parts, on which 
are twenty-four black and white spaces 
called points. Each player has fifteen 
men of different colors for the purpose of 
distinction. The movements of the men 
are made in accordance with the numbers 
turned up by the dice. 

■RapVhnvspri (bak'hoi-zn), Ludolf, 
HaCKnuybdi a celebrated painter 

of the Dutch school, particularly in sea 
pieces, born in 1631, died 1709. His most 
famous picture is a sea piece which the 
burgomasters of Amsterdam commis¬ 
sioned him to paint as a present to Louis 
XVI. It is still at Paris. 
■Rap-mnM bak ' nin )’ a town of Ton ‘ 

J3dLIUII.il (iuin Qn tbe Red Ri ver? f or . 

tified and containing a French garrison, 
being in an important strategic position. 
Pop. 7000. 

■RnpAn (ba'kun), Anthony, elder 
brother to the celebrated lord- 
chancellor, was born in 1558 and died in 
1601. He was an astute politician and 
much devoted to learned pursuits. He 
became personally acquainted with most 
of the foreign literati of the day, and 
gained the friendship of Henry IV of 
France. Lord Bacon dedicated to him 
the first edition of the Essays. 


"Rarrm Francis, Baron of Verulam, 
9 Viscount St. Albans, and Lord 
High Chancellor of England; was born at 
London in 1561, died at Highgate in 
1626. His father, Nicholas Bacon, was 
keeper of the great seal under Queen 
Elizabeth. (See Bacon, Nicholas.) He 
was educated at Trinity College, Cam¬ 
bridge, and in 1575 was admitted to 
Gray’s-Inn. In 1576-79 he was at Paris 
with Sir Amyas Paulet, the English am¬ 
bassador. The death of his father called 
him back to England, and being left in 
straitened circumstances, he zealously 
pursued the study of law, and was ad¬ 
mitted a barrister in 1582. In 1584 he 
became member of parliament for Mel- 



Lord Bacon. 

combe Regis, and soon after drew up a 
Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth, an 
able political memoir. In 1586 he was 
member for Taunton, in 1589 for Liver¬ 
pool. A year or two after he gained the 
Earl of Essex as a friend and patron. 
Bacon’s talents and his connection with 
the lord-treasurer Burleigh, who had 
married his mother’s sister, and his son 
Sir Robert Cecil, first secretary of state, 
seemed to promise him the highest pro¬ 
motion ; but he had displeased the queen, 
and when he applied for the attorney- 
generalship, and next for the solicitor- 
generalship (1595), he was unsuccessful. 
Essex endeavored to indemnify him by 
the donation of an estate in land. 
Bacon, however, forgot his obligations to 
his benefactor, and not only abandoned 
him as soon as he had fallen into dis¬ 
grace, but without being obliged took 
part against him on his trial, in 1601, 
and was active in obtaining his convic¬ 
tion. He had been chosen member for the 
county of Middlesex in 1593, and for 
Southampton in 1597, and had long been 
a queen’s counsel. The reign of James 



Bacon 


Bacon 


I was more favorable to his interest. He 
was assiduous in courting the king’s 
favor, and James, who was ambitious of 
being considered a patron of letters, con¬ 
ferred upon him in 1603 the order of 
knighthood. In 1604 he was appointed 
king’s counsel, with a pension of $300; in 
1606 he married; in 1607 he became 
solicitor-general, and six years after at¬ 
torney-general. He was anxious to pro¬ 
duce harmony between James and his 
parliament, but his efforts were without 
avail, and his obsequiousness and ser¬ 
vility gained him enmity and discredit. 
In 1617 he was made lord-keeper of the 
seals; in 1618 Lord High Chancellor of 
England and Baron Verulam. In this 
year he lent his influence to bring a ver¬ 
dict of guilty against Raleigh. In 1621 
he was made Viscount St. Albans. Soon 
after fhis his reputation received a fatal 
blow. A new parliament was formed in 
1621, and the lord-chancellor was accused 
before the house of bribery, corruption, 
and other malpractices. It is difficult to 
ascertain the full extent of his guilt; but 
he seems to have been unable to justify 
himself, and handed in a ‘ confession and 
humble submission,’ throwing himself on 
the mercy of the Peers. He was con¬ 
demned to pay a fine of $200,000, to be 
committed to the Tower during the pleas¬ 
ure of the king, declared incompetent to 
hold any office of state, and banished from 
court for ever. The sentence, however, 
was never carried out. The fine was 
remitted almost as soon as imposed, and 
he was imprisoned for only a few days. 
He survived his fall a few years, during 
this time occupying himself with his 
literary and scientific works, and vainly 
hoping for political employment. In 1597 
lie published his celebrated Essays, which 
immediately became very popular, were 
successively enlarged and extended, and 
translated into Latin, French, and 
Italian. The treatise on the Advance¬ 
ment of Learning appeared in 1605; The 
Wisdom of the Ancients in 1609 (in 
Latin) ; his great philosophical work, the 
Novum Organum(m Latin), in 1620; and 
the De Augmentis Scientiarum, a much 
enlarged edition (in Latin) of the Ad¬ 
vancement, in 1623. His New Atlantis 
was written about 1614-17; Life of 
Henry VII about 1621. Various minor 
productions also proceeded from his pen. 
Numerous editions of his works have 
been published, by far the best being that 
of Messrs. Spedding, Ellis, & Heath 
(1858-74). Bacon was great as a 
moralist, a historian, a writer on politics, 
and a rhetorician ; but it is as the father 
of the inductive method in science, as the 
powerful exponent of the principle that 


facts must be observed and collected be¬ 
fore theorizing, that he occupies the 
grand position he holds among the world’s 
great ones. His moral character, how¬ 
ever, was not on a level with his intellec¬ 
tual, self-aggrandizement being the main 
aim of his life. We need do no more than 
allude to the preposterous attempt that 
has been made to prove that Bacon was 
the real author of the plays attributed to 
Shakspere, an attempt that only ignorance 
of Bacon and Shakspere could uphold and 
tolerate. 


BaCOIl John, an English sculptor, 
5 born 1740; died 1799. Among 
his chief work-! are two groups for the 
interior of the Royal Academy; the 
statue of Judge Blackstone for Ail Souls 
College, Oxford; another of Henry VI 
for Eton College; the monument of Lord 
Chatham in Westminster Abbey; and 
the statues of Dr. Johnson and Mr. How¬ 


ard in St. Paul’s Cathedral. 

BaCOIl Sir Nicholas, father of Lord 
’ Bacon, lord-keeper of the great 
seal, born 1510, died 1579. Henry VIII 
gave him several lucrative offices, which 
he retained under Edward VI. He lived 
in retirement during the reign of Mary, 
but Queen Elizabeth appointed him lord- 
keeper for life. He was the intimate 
friend of Lord Burleigh, a sister of whose 
wife he married, and by her became the 
father of the great chancellor. 

BaCOn, Roger, an English monk, and 
9 one of the most profound and 
original thinkers of his day, was born 
about 1214, near Ilchester. Somersetshire ; 
died at Oxford in 1294. He first entered 
the University of Oxford, and went after¬ 
wards to that of Paris, where he is said 
to have distinguished himself and received 
the degree of Doctor of Theology. About 
1250 he returned to England, entered the 
order of Franciscans, and fixed his abode 
at Oxford, but having incurred the suspi¬ 
cion of his ecclesiastical superiors he was 
sent to Paris and kept in confinement for 
ten years, without writing materials, 
books, or instruments. The cause seems 
to have been simple enough. He had been 
a diligent student of the chemical, phys¬ 
ical, and mathematical sciences, and had 
made discoveries, and deduced results, 
which appeared so extraordinary to the 
ignorant that they were believed to be 
works of magic. This opinion was coun¬ 
tenanced by the jealousy and hatred of 
the monks of his fraternity. In subse¬ 
quent times he was popularly classed 
among those who had been in league with 
Satan. Having been set at liberty he en¬ 
joyed a brief space of quiet while Cle¬ 
ment IV was pope; but in 1278 he was 
again thrown into prison, where he re- 



Bacon’s Rebellion 


Badakshan 


mained for at least ten years. Of the 
close of his life little is known. His 
most important work is his Opus Majus, 
where he discusses the relation of philoso¬ 
phy to religion, and then treats of lan¬ 
guage, metaphysics, optics, and experi¬ 
mental science. He was undoubtedly the 
earliest philosophical experimentalist in 
Britain; he made signal advances in 
optics; was an excellent chemist; but it 
was not he who discovered gunpowder, as 
has been stated, though he was probably 
familiar with its explosive property. He 
was intimately acquainted with geography 
and astronomy, as appears by his dis¬ 
covery of the errors of the calendar, and 
their causes, and by his proposals for 
correcting them, in which he approached 
very near the truth. 

Bacon’s Rebellion, ?“ insurrection 

7 in Virginia in 
1676, which arose from Indian depreda¬ 
tions and the neglect of Sir William 
Berkeley, the governor, to send troops 
against them. A force of planters, led by 
Nathaniel Bacon, proceeded against them, 
and when proclaimed a traitor by Berke¬ 
ley attacked him in Jamestown and 
burned the town. His sudden death left 
his followers to the vengeance of Berkeley, 
who executed a number of their leaders. 
Rartfwia (bak-te'ri-a ; Gr. bakterion , 
a a rod), a class of very mi¬ 
nute microscopical organisms, often of a 
rod-like form, which are regarded as of 
vegetable nature, and as being the cause 
of putrefaction; they are also called 
microbes or microphytes. The genus 
Bacterium, in a restricted sense, com- 



Bacteria in Milk. (Greatly Enlarged.) 

prises microscopical, unicellular, rod¬ 
shaped vegetable organisms, which mul¬ 
tiply by transverse division of the cells. 
Species are found in all decomposing 


animal and vegetable liquids. The bacilli 
(see Bacillus) are often spoken of as 
bacteria, this latter term being used 
in a wide sense and comprising organisms 
of various forms and with several dis¬ 
tinct names, as spirillum, micrococcus, 
etc. They consist of a mass of proto¬ 
plasm enclosed in a membrane, and all 
have at some stage or other cilia serv¬ 
ing for locomotion. Reproduction is 
asexual and by division. For their im¬ 
portance to man in regard to their con¬ 
nection with disease see Germ Theory. 
Bactriana (bak-tri-a'nd), or Bac- 
tria, a country of ancient 
Asia, south of the Oxus and reaching to 
the west of the Hindu Kush. It is often 
regarded as the original home of the Indo- 
European races. A Graeco-Bactrian king¬ 
dom flourished about the third century 
b.c., hut its history is obscure. 

Bactris (bak'tris), a genus of 

American palm^, the species 
generally small, one with a stem no 
thicker than a goose quill; some spiny 
and forming close thickets. The Maraja 
has edible fruit clusters like grapes and 
its stem is used for walking sticks. 
"Raonli+p (bak'u-llt), a genus of fossil 
JDdGUiitc ammon ites, characteristic of 

the chalk, having a straight tapering 
shell. 

"Rpprm (bakTip), a municipal borough 
Ddisuy of En?land> in Lancashire, 18 
miles N. of Manchester. The chief manu¬ 
facturing establishments are connected 
with cotton-spinning and power-loom 
weaving; there are also iron-works, Tur¬ 
key-red dyeing works, and in the neigh¬ 
borhood numerous coal-pits and immense 
stone quarries. Pop. 22,505. 

Ha rip errv (ba-dag're), a British sea- 
° y port on the Slave Coast, 
Upper Guinea, 50 miles e. n. e. of Why- 
dah. 

"Rarlainr (bd-dd-ftoth'; anc. Pax Au- 

jjctudjuzi pusta) the fortified ca pi ta i 

of the Spanish province of Badajoz, on the 
left bank of the Guadiana, which is 
crossed by a stone bridge of twenty-eight 
arches. It is a bishop’s see, and has an 
interesting cathedral. During the Pe¬ 
ninsular war Badajoz was besieged by 
Marshal Soult, and taken in March, 1811. 
It was retaken by Wellington on 6th 
April, 1812. Pop. 30,809. 

Badakshan (b&-d&k-shan'), a tern- 
tory of Central Asia, 
tributary to the Ameer of Afghanistan. 
It has the Oxus on the north and the 
Hindu Kush on the south ; and has lofty 
mountains and fertile valleys; the chief 
town is Faizabad. The inhabitants pro¬ 
fess Mohammedanism. Pop. about 100,- 
000 . 




Badalona 


Badge 


"Rad a Inn a (ba-d&-lo'na), a Mediterra- 

jsaaaiona nean seaport of Spain< 5 

miles from Barcelona. Pop. 19,240. 
Badderlocks (bad'er-loks), also 

called Honeyware or 
TTenware, an olive-colored sea-weed ( Ala¬ 
rm esculenta). It is eaten by the 
coast people of Iceland, Denmark, Scot¬ 
land, Ireland, etc., and is said to be 
the best of the esculent algae. 

Baden ( ba ' d en), gkand-duchy of, 

one of the more important 
states of the German Empire, situated in 
the s. w. of Germany, to the west of 
Wiirtemberg. It is divided into four 
districts, Constance, Freiburg, Carlsruhe, 
and Mannheim ; has an area of 5824 sq. 
miles, and a pop. of 2,009,320. It is 
mountainous, being traversed to a con¬ 
siderable extent by the lofty plateau of 
the Schwarzwald or Black Forest, which 
attains its highest point in the Feldberg 
(4904 ft.). The nucleus of this plateau 
consists of gneiss and granite. In the 
north it sinks down towards the Oden- 
wald, which is, however, of different 
geological structure, being composed for 
the most part of red sandstone. The 
whole of Baden, except a small portion 
in the s. e., in which the Danube takes its 
rise, belongs to the basin of the Rhine, 
which bounds it on the south and w T est. 
Numerous tributaries of the Rhine inter¬ 
sect it, the chief being the Neckar. Lakes 
are numerous, and its waters include a 
considerable part of the Lake of Con¬ 
stance. The climate varies much. The 
hilly parts, especially in the east, are cold 
and have a long winter, while the valley 
of the Rhine enjoys the finest climate of 
Germany. The principal minerals 
worked are coal, salt, iron, zinc, and 
nickel. The number of mineral springs 
is remarkably great, and of these not a 
few are of great celebrity. The vegeta¬ 
tion is peculiarly rich, and there are 
magnificent forests. The cereals comprise 
wheat, oats, barley, and rye. Potatoes, 
hemp, tobacco, wine, and sugar-beet are 
largely produced. Several of the wines, 
both white and red, rank in the first class. 
Baden has long been famous for its fruits 
also. The farms are mostly quite small. 
The manufactures are important. Among 
them are textiles, tobacco and cigars, 
chemicals, machinery, pottery ware, 
jewelry (especially at Pforzheim), wooden 
clocks, confined chiefly to the districts 
of the Black Forest, musical boxes and 
other musical toys. The capital is Carls¬ 
ruhe, about 5 miles from the Rhine; the 
other chief towns are Mannheim, Frei- 
burg-im-Breisgau, with a Roman Catho¬ 
lic university; Baden, and Heidelberg. 
Baden has warm mineral springs, which 
were known and used in the time of the 


Romans. Heidelberg has a university 
(Protestant), founded in 1386, the oldest 
in the present German Empire. The 
railways have a length of 850 miles, and 
are nearly all state property. In the 
time of the Roman Empire southern 
Baden belonged to the Roman province 
of Rhsetia. Under the old German Em¬ 
pire it was a margraviate, which in 1533 
was divided into Baden-Baden and Baden- 
Durlach. but reunited in 1771. The title 
of grand-duke was conferred by Napoleon 
in 1806, and in the same year Baden was 
extended to its present limits. The exec¬ 
utive power is vested in the grand-duke, 
the legislative in a house of legislature, 
consisting of an upper and a lower cham¬ 
ber. The former consists partly of 
hereditary members; the latter consists of 
elected representatives of the people. The 
revenue is mainly derived from taxes 
on land and incomes, and the produce of 
crown-lands, forests, and mines. Baden 
sends three members to the German Bun- 
desrath or Federal Council, and fourteen 
deputies to the Diet. Two-thirds of the 
population are Roman Catholics, the rest 
Protestants. 

Baden ( or Baden-Baden, to distin¬ 
guish it from other towns of 
the same name; German Bad, a bath), 
a town and watering-place, Grand-duchy 
of Baden. 18 miles s. s. w. Carlsruhe, 
built in the form of an amphitheater on 
a spur of the Black Forest, overhanging 
a valley, through which runs a little 
stream, Oosbach. Baden has been cele¬ 
brated from the remotest antiquity for 
its thermal baths; and it used also to be 
celebrated for its gaming saloons. It has 
many good buildings, and a castle, the 
summer residence of the grand-duke. 
Pop. (1905) 16,238. 

"Rarlpn a town of Austria, 15 miles 
Udueil, s. w. of Vienna. It has 
numerous hot sulphurous springs, used 
both for bathing and drinking, and very 
much frequented. Pop. 17,770. 

Badeil a sma ^ town of Switzerland, 
’ canton Aargau, celebrated for 
its hot sulphurous baths, which attract 
many visitors. Pop. 6109. 

Baden Powell, J* 0BER . T s. s., soldier, 

’ born in England in 
1857.^ He joined the Thirteenth Hussars 
in 1876. and served in India, Afghanistan, 
Ashanti, and South Africa. He held 
Mafeking against the Boer assault in 
1899 and was made a major-general for 
his gallant defense. He wrote The 
Matabela Campaign and other works. 
He instituted the Boy Scouts organiza¬ 
tion (q. v.). 

Badsre ( ba J). a distinctive device, em- 
® blem, mark, honorary decora- 



Badger 


Bagdad 


tion, or special cognizance, used originally 
to identify a knight or distinguish his fol¬ 
lowers, now worn as a sign of office or 
licensed employment, as a token of mem¬ 
bership in some society, or generally as a 
mark showing the relation of the wearer 
to any person, occupation, or order. 
Badffer (baj'er), a plantigrade, car- 
& nivorous mammal, allied both 
to the bears and to the weasels, of a 
clumsy make, with short, thick legs, and 
long claws on the forefeet. The common 
badger (Meles vulgaris) is as large as a 
middling-sized dog, but much lower on the 
legs, with a flatter and broader body, very 
thick, tough hide, and long, coarse hair. 
It inhabits the north of Europe and Asia, 
burrows, is indolent and sleepy, feeds by 
night on vegetables, small quadrupeds, 
etc. Its flesh may be eaten, and its hair 
is used for artists’ brushes in painting. 
The American badger belongs to a sepa¬ 
rate genus, Badger baiting, or drawing the 
badger, is a barbarous sport, formerly 
and yet to some extent, practised, gen¬ 
erally as an attraction to public-houses 
of the lowest sort. A badger is put in a 
barrel, and one or more dogs are put in 
to drag him out. When this is effected 
he is returned to his barrel, to be simi¬ 
larly assailed by a fresh set. The badger 
usually makes a most determined and 
savage resistance. 

"Radfrpv Dno* a long-bodied, short- 
.Detugei .uug, legged dog? with rather 

large, pendulous ears, usually short 
haired, black, and with yellow extremi¬ 
ties ; often called by its German name 
Dachshund. 


■Rad Tand<5 an extensive region in 
i3aa South Dakota, extend¬ 

ing into Nebraska, so called from the 
French title Mauvaises terres. It is a 
hilly region of friable material which 
has been cut by rivers and streams into 
innumerable ravines, the worn hill faces 
often looking like massive works of archi¬ 
tecture. The Sioux Indians formerly used 
these hills as a natural fortress, and more 
recently they have proved rich in fossil 
remains of ancient animals. 

Badminton (bad'mm-tun) an out- 

door game closely re¬ 
sembling lawn-tennis, but played with 
battledore and shuttlecock instead of ball 
and racket: named after a seat of the 
Duke of Beaufort, in Gloucestershire. 

Badrinath 0»-dri-nat'), a peak of 

the main Himalayan 
range, in Garhw&l District, Northwestern 
Provinces, 23,210 feet above the sea. On 
one of its shoulders at an elevation of 
10,400 feet stands a celebrated temple of 
Vishnu, which some years attracts as 
many as 50,000 pilgrims. 


BppHpVpv (ba'de-ker), Karl, a Ger- 

uaeaeKei man pu51isher> born 180 i, 

died 1859; originator of a celebrated 
series of guide-books for travelers. 
Baena (ba-a'na), a town of Spain, in 
Andalusia, province of and 24 
miles s. s. e. from Cordova. Pop. 14,539. 
Baeza (ba-a'tha; anciently, Beatia), a 
town of Spain, in Andalusia, 22 
miles E. n. e. from Jaen. with 14,379 in¬ 
habitants. The principal edifices are the 
cathedral, the university (now sup¬ 
pressed), and the old monastery of St. 
Philip de Neri. 

Baffa (b&f'fa; anc. Paphos ), a seaport 
on the s. w. coast of Cyprus. It 
occupies the site of New Paphos, which, 
under the Romans, was full of beautiful 
temples and other public buildings. Old 
Paphos stood a little to the southeast. 
Baffin (baf'in), William, an English 
navigator, born 1584 ; famous for 
his discoveries in the Arctic regions; in 
1616 ascertained the limits of Baffin 
Bay; was killed at the siege of Ormuz, 
in the East Indies, in 1622. 

Baffin "Raxr on the n. e. of North 
-uaiiin nay , America between Green¬ 
land and the islands that lie on the n. 
of the continent; discovered by Baffin in 
1616. 

Ba fra <jqp (ba-gas'), the sugar-cane in its 
® c dry crushed state as delivered 
from the.mill, and after the main portion 
of its juice has been expressed; used as 
fuel in the sugar factory, and called also 
cane-trash. 

Bagatelle (bag-a-tel'), a game played 
& on a long, flat board covered 

with . cloth like a billiard-table, with 
spherical balls and a cue or mace. At 
the end of the board are nine cups or 
sockets of just sufficient size to receive 
the balls. The player’s object is to place 
as many of his balls as possible in the 
sockets. 

Bagdad (bag-dad' or bag'dad), capital 
& of a Turkish pashalic of the 
same name (40,000 sq. miles, 500,000 to 
1,000,000 inhabitants), in the southern 
part of Mesopotamia (now Irak Arabi). 
The greater part of it lies on the eastern 
bank of the Tigris, which is crossed by a 
bridge of boats; old Bagdad, the resi¬ 
dence of the caliphs (now in ruins), was 
on the western bank of the river. The 
modern city is surrounded with a hrick 
wall about 6 miles in circuit; the houses 
are mostly built of brick, the streets 
unpaved and very narrow. The palace 
of the governor is spacious. Of the 
mosques, only a few attract notice; the 
bazaars are all large and well stocked; 
that of Dawd Pacha still ranks as one 



Bagehot 


Bagnfcres de Bigorre 


of the most splendid in the world. Manu¬ 
factures : leather, silks, cottons, woolens, 
carpets, etc. Steamers ply on the river 
between Bagdad and Bassorah, and the 
town exports wheat, dates, galls, gum, 
mohair, carpets, etc., to Europe. Bag¬ 
dad is inhabited by Turks, Arabs, Per¬ 
sians, Armenians, Jews, etc., and a small 
number of Europeans. Estimated pop. 
over 100,000. The Turks compose three- 
fourths of the whole population. The 


"Rq o’O'ptipn (hag e-sen), Jens, a Danish 
* ua && cac11 poet, who also wrote much 
in German; born 1764, at Korsbr; died 
at Dresden, 1826. He tried lyric, epic, 
dramatic poetry, and both serious and 
humorous verse. His best productions 
are his smaller poems and songs, several 
of which are very popular with his 
countrymen. 

Baghelkhand 



Bagdad, from the South. 


city has been frequently visited by the 
plague, and in 1831 was nearly deva¬ 
stated by that calamity. Bagdad was 
founded in 762, by the Caliph Almansur, 
and raised to a high degree of splendor 
in the ninth century by Harun A1 Rashid. 
It is the scene of a number of the tales 
of the ‘ Arabian Nights.’ In the thir¬ 
teenth century it was stormed by Hu- 
laku, grandson of Genghis-Ivhan, who 
caused the reigning caliph to be slain, 
and destroyed the caliphate. 

Baffehot ( bri i' ot ), Walter, an Eng- 
® lish economist and journal¬ 

ist, born at Langport, Somerset, in 1826; 
died at the same place in 1877. He 
graduated at the London University, 
1848, and was for some time associated 
with his father in the banking business 
in London. He was one of the editors of 
the National Review (1855-64), and 
from 1860 till his death he was editor and 
part proprietor of the Economist. His 
chief works are: Physics and Politics , 
The English Constitution, Lombard 
Street, and Studies, Literary, Biographic, 
and Economic. 

BaP’g’ala ( ba g'a-la), a two-masted Arab 
&& boat, generally 200-250 tons 
burden, used for trading in the Indian 
Ocean, Red Sea, etc. 


India, occupied by a collection of native 
states (Rewah being the chief), under 
the governor-general’s agent for Central 
India. 

Bae’lieria (bii-ga-re'a), a town of 
-DdgllCIld, gicily 7 mileg east of 

Palermo. Pop. 17,200. 

*Ra t*tti l (bct-gir me), or Baghermi, a 
° 1 Mohammedan negro state in 

Central Africa, situated between Bornu 
and Waday, to the south of Lake Tchad. 
It is mostly a plain; has an area of 
about 56,000 sq. miles, and about 1,500,- 
000 inhabitants. The people are indus¬ 
trious, and have attained a considerable 
degree of civilization. 

Bagnacavallo ( B " LO k M ^ EO ft n £»: 

menghi, Italian painter, born in 1484; 
died in 1542. Called Bagnacavallo from 
the village where he was born. At Rome 
he was a pupil of Raphael, and assisted 
in decorating the gallery of the Vatican. 
TJo crn a (bh-nya'ra), a seaport near the 
jjcigiidid s. w. extremity of Italy. Pop. 
7568. 

Bagneres de Bigorre d a 

watering-place in France, department of 
Hautes Pyrenees, on the left bank of the 
Adour. It owes celebrity to its baths, 

























Bagneres de Luchon 


Bahia 


which are sulphurous and saline, but it 
has also manufacturing and other indus¬ 
tries. Pop. (1906 ) 6661. 

Bagneres de Luchon 

town in France, department Haute Ga¬ 
ronne, in a valley surrounded by wooded 
hills, one of the principal watering- 
places of the Pyrenees, having sulphurous 
thermal waters, said to be beneficial in 
rheumatic complaints. Resident pop. 
3260. 

Bacnine (bag'pip), a musical Wind¬ 
ow * instrument of very great an¬ 
tiquity, having been used among the an¬ 
cient Greeks, and being a favorite in¬ 
strument over Europe generally in the 
fifteenth century. It still continues in 
use among the country people of Poland, 
Italy, the south of France, and in Scot¬ 
land and Ireland. Though now often 
regarded as the national instrument of 
Scotland, especially Celtic Scotland, it 
is only Scottish by adoption, having been 
introduced into that country from Eng¬ 
land. It consists of a leathern bag, which 
receives the air from the mouth, or from 
bellows; and of pipes, into which the 
air is pressed from the bag by the per¬ 
former’s elbow. In the common or High¬ 
land form one pipe (called the chanter) 
plays the melody; of the three others 
(called drones) two are in unison with 
the lowest A of the chanter, and the 
third and longest an octave lower, the 
sound being produced by means of reeds. 
The chanter has eight holes, which the 
performer stops and opens at pleasure, 
but the scale is imperfect and the tone 
harsh. There are several species of bag¬ 
pipes, as the soft and melodious Irish 
bagpipe, supplied with wind by a bel¬ 
lows, and having several keyed drones; 
the old English bagpipe (now no longer 
used) ; the Italian bagpipe, a very rude 
instrument, etc. 

Bagration (bag-ra'tyon), Peter, 
Jjd/gl a ,tiUII p RINCE> a distinguished 

Russian general, descended from a. noble 
Georgian family. He was born in 1756, 
entered the Russian service in 1783, and 
was constantly engaged in active serv¬ 
ice till he was mortally wounded at the 
battle of Borodino, Sept. 7, 1812. 

Bag'shot Sand, VI 


series of beds of siliceous sand, occupying 
extensive tracts round Bagshot, in 
Surrey, and in the New Forest, Hamp¬ 
shire, the whole reposing on the London 
clay ", generally devoid of fossils. 

Ba'haism. See Babism. 

TJoLoma (ba-ha'ma) Islands, or Lu- 
ijctiidiiici CAyos (lo-ki'os), a group of 


islands in the West Indies, forming a 
colony belonging to Britain, lying N. e. 
of Cuba and s. e. of the coast of Florida, 
the gulf stream passing between them 
and the mainland. They extend a dis¬ 
tance of upwards of 600 miles, and are 
said to be twenty-nine in number, be¬ 
sides keys and rocks innumerable. The 
principal islands are Grand Bahama, 
Great and Little Abaco, Andros Islands, 
New Providence, Eleuthera, San Sal¬ 
vador, Great Exuma, Watling Island, 
Long Island, Crooked Island, Acklin 
Island, Mariguana Island, Great Inagua. 
Of the whole group, about twenty are in¬ 
habited, the most populous being New 
Providence, which contains the capital, 
Nassau, the largest being Andros, 100 
miles long, 20 to 40 broad. They are 
low and flat, and have in many parts 
extensive forests. Total area, 5450 sq. 
miles. The soil is a thin but rich vege¬ 
table mold, and the principal product is 
pineapples, which form the most impor¬ 
tant export. Other fruits are also grown, 
with cotton, sugar, maize, yams, ground¬ 
nuts, cocoa-nuts, etc. Sponges are ob¬ 
tained in large quantity and are ex¬ 
ported. The islands are a favorite win¬ 
ter resort for those afflicted with pul¬ 
monary diseases. Watling Island is now 
by best authorities believed to be same as 
Guanahani, the land first touched on by 
Columbus (October 12, 1492), on his first 
great voyage of discovery. The first 
British settlement was made on New 
Providence towards the close of the 
seventeenth century. A number of Amer¬ 
icans loyal to England settled in the 
islands after the war of independence. 
Pop. 53,735, largely negroes. 

TJnUv (ba-har'), or Barre, an East 
xictiiax j n( ji an measure of weight, 

varying considerably in different localities 
and in accordance with the substances 
weighed, the range being from 223 to 
625 lbs. 


Bahawalpur ot S 

of same name in the Punjab, 2 miles 
from the Sutlej; surrounded by a mud 
wall and containing the extensive palace 
of the Nawab. Pop. (1911) 18,546. The 
state has an area of 15,000 sq. miles, of 
which 10,000 is desert, the only culti¬ 
vated lands lying along the Indus and 
Sutlej. Pop. 720,700. 

"RnTiia (ba-e'a ; formerly San Salvador), 
a town of Brazil, on the Bay of 
All Saints, province of Bahia. It con¬ 
sists of a lower town, which is little 
more than an irregular, narrow, and dirty 
street, stretching about 4 miles along the 
shore; and an upper town, with which it 
is connected by a steep street, much 



Bahr 


Bailey 


better built. The harbor is one of the 
best in South America; and the trade, 
chiefly in sugar, cotton, coffee, tobacco, 
hides, piassava, and tapioca, is very ex¬ 
tensive. Pop. about 200,000. The State 



of Bahia, area, 164,649 square miles, 
pop. in 1888, 1,919,802, has much fertile 
land, both along the coast and in the in¬ 
terior. 

"RaTir (bar), an Arabic Word signifying 
■ 0ctlAA sea or large river ; as in Bahr-el- 
Huleh, the Lake Merom in Palestine; 
Bahr-el-Abiad, the White Nile, Bahr-el- 
Azrek, the Blue Nile, which together 
unite at Khartoum. 

HaliraiVh (ba-rich'), a flourishing town 
•Dctlli Qf Indiaj in 0u dh, a place of 

great antiquity. Pop. about 25,000. 
Bahrein (ba-ran') Islands, a group 
of islands in the Persian 
Gulf, in an indentation on the Arabian 
coast. The principal island, usually 
called Bahrein, is about 27 miles in 
length and 10 in breadth. The principal 
town is Menamah or Manama; pop. 
about 25,000. The Bahrein Islands are 
chiefly noted for their pearl-fisheries, 
which were known to the ancients. 

Bahr-el-Ghazal (b&h-ei-g&-z&n a 

large river of Cen¬ 
tral Africa, a western tributary of the 
White Nile. 

Baiadeer. See Bayadere. 


Baise ( b * an ancient Roman watering- 

place on the coast of Campania, 10 
miles west of Naples. Many of the 
wealthy Romans had country houses at 
Baise, which Horace preferred to all 
other places. Ruins of temples, baths, 
and villas still attract the attention of 
archaeologists. 


"Rental (bi'kal), a large fresh-water lake 
^Jd/ixvcii in Eastern Siberia, 360 miles 

long, and about 50 in extreme breadth, 
interspersed with islands; Ion. 104° to 
110° e. ; lat. 51° 20' to 55° 20' n. It is 
surrounded by rugged and lofty moun¬ 
tains ; contains seals, and many fish, par¬ 
ticularly salmon, sturgeon, and pike. 
Its greatest depth is over 4000 feet. It 
receives the waters of the Upper An¬ 
gara, Selenga, Barguzin, etc., and dis¬ 
charges its waters by the Lower Angara. 
It is frozen over in winter. 

Baikie ( ba ' ke )> William Balfour, born 
in the Orkney Islands 1824, died 
at Sierra Leone 1863. He joined the 
British navy, and was made surgeon and 
naturalist of the Niger expedition, 1854. 
He took the command on the death of 
the senior officer, and explored the Niger 
for 250 miles. Another expedition, which 
started in 1857, passed two years in ex¬ 
ploring. when the vessel was wrecked, 
and all the members, with the exception 
of Baikie, returned to England. With 
none but native assistants he formed a 
settlement at the confluence of the Benu6 
and the Quorra, in which he was ruler, 
teacher, and physician, and within a few 
years he opened the Niger to navigation, 
made roads, established a market, etc. 
Bail fain)’ the person or persons who 
procure the release of a prisoner 
from custody by becoming surety for his 
appearance in court at the proper time; 
also, the security given for the release of 
a prisoner from custody. 

"Rail ph (bl-len'), a town of s. Spain, 
a AC 1 prov. Jaen, with lead mines. 
Pop. 7420. 

BaileV ( bali )> the name given to the 
a courts of a castle formed by the 
spaces between the circuits of walls or 
defenses which surrounded the keep. 
Bailev T^ ibe R ty H.. an American bot- 
J ’ anist, born in 1858, professor of 
horticulture at Michigan Agricultural 
College in 1885, at Cornell in 1888, dean 
of College of Agriculture there in 1903. 
Edited The American Garden and Rural 
Science; after 1902 on staff of Country 
Life in America. Author of The Sur¬ 
vival of the Unlike, Cyclopedia of Amer¬ 
ican Horticulture, etc. 

Bailev or Batly ’ Nathaniel, an Eng- 
lish lexicographer, a school 
teacher at Stepney, and author of several 
educational works. His dictionary, pub¬ 
lished in 1721, passed through a great 
many editions. 

Bailev Bhilip James, an English 

Poet, born at Nottingham, in 
1816, and called to the bar in 1840. 
Published Festus , his best work, in 1839; 
The Mystic, 1855; The Age, 1858; and 








Bailie, Baillie 


Bailly 


The Universal Hymn , 1867. He died 

in 1902. 

Bailie, Baillie^V—Pfet 

Scotland, corresponding to an alderman 
in England. The criminal jurisdiction of 
the provost and bailies of royal burghs 
extends to breaches of the peace, drunken¬ 
ness, adulteration of articles of diet, 
thefts not of an aggravated character, 
and other offenses of a less serious 
nature. 

bailiff (ba'lif), a civil officer or func¬ 
tionary, subordinate to some one 
else. There are several kinds of bailiffs, 
whose offices widely differ, but all agree 
in this, that the keeping or protection 
of something belongs to them. In Eng¬ 
land the sheriff is the monarch’s bailiff, 
and his county is a bailiwick. The name 
is also applied to the chief magistrates 
of some towns, to keepers of royal castles, 
as of Dover, to persons having the con¬ 
servation of the peace in hundreds and 
in some special jurisdictions, as West¬ 
minster, and to the returning-officers in 
the same. But the officials commonly 
designated by this name are the bailiffs 
sheriffs, or sheriffs’ officers, who execute 
processes, etc. Bailiwick represents the 
limits of a bailiff’s authority. 
Bailleul (ba-yeul), an ancient French 
town, department of Nord, 
near the Belgian frontier, about 19 miles 
west of Lille. Has manufactures of 
woolen and cotton stuffs, lace, leather, 
etc. Pop. 11,900. A village of same 
name in dep. Orne gave its name to the 
Baliol family. 

Baillie ( ba ' lg )’ Joanna, a Scottish 
authoress, born at Bothwell, 
Lanarkshire, in 1762; died at Hamp¬ 
stead in 1851. She removed in early life 
to London, where in 1798 she published 
her first work, entitled A Series of Plays, 
in which she attempted to delineate the 
stronger passions by making each passion 
the subject of a tragedy and a comedy. 
Other volumes followed and also a 
volume of miscellaneous poetry, including 
songs. Her only plays performed on the 
stage were a tragedy entitled the Family 
Legend, brought out at Edinburgh under 
the patronage of Sir Walter Scott; and 
De Montfort, brought out by John 
Kemble. 


Baillie Matthew, physician and anat- 
’ omist, brother of the preceding, 
was born in 1761 at Shotts, Lanarkshire: 
died at Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in 
1823. In 1773 he was placed at the Uni¬ 
versity of Glasgow. He afterwards 
studied anatomy under his maternal 
uncles John and William Hunter, and en¬ 
tered Oxford, where he was graduated as 


M.D. In 1783 he succeeded his uncle as 
lecturer on anatomy in London, where he 
acquired a high reputation as a teacher 
and demonstrator, having also a large 
practise. In 1810 he was appointed 
physician to George III. His work on 
The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the 
Most Important Parts of the Human 
Body gave him a European reputation. 
Baillie Robert > an eminent Scottish 
* Presbyterian clergyman, was 
born at Glasgow in 1509; died in 1662, 
Though educated and ordained as an 
Episcopalian, he resisted the attempt of 
Archbishop Laud to introduce his Book 
of. Common Prayer into Scotland and 
joined the Presbyterian party, and in 
1640 he was selected to go to London, 
with other commissioners, to prepare 
charges against Archbishop Laud for his 
innovations upon the Scottish Church, 
and was subsequently appointed professor 
of divinity at Glasgow. He was a man 
of profound learning, wrote a number of 
theological works, and his letters and 
journal are of great value for the history 
of his time. 

Bail lip Robert, of Jerviswood, in Lan- 
9 arkshire, a Scottish patriot of 
the reign of Charles II. In 1683 he 
went to London in furtherance of a 
scheme of emigration to South Carolina 
as being the only way of escaping the 
tyranny of the government. He became 
associated with Monmouth, Sydney, Rus¬ 
sell, and the rest of that party, and was 
charged with complicity in the Rye-house 
plot. He was condemned without evi¬ 
dence and executed in December, 1684. 

(ba-ye), Jean Sylvain, French 
astronomer and statesman, born 
at Paris, in 1736. After some youthful 
essays in verse, he was induced by La- 
caille to devote himself to astronomy, 
and on the death of the latter in 1753. 
being admitted to the Academy of 
Sciences, he published a reduction of 
Lacaille’s observations on the zodiacal 
stars. In 1764 he competed ably but un¬ 
successfully for the Academy prize of¬ 
fered for an essay upon Jupiter’s satel¬ 
lites, Lagrange being his opponent; and 
in 1771 he published a treatise on the 
light reflected by these satellites. In the 
meantime he had won distinction as a 
man of letters by his eulogiums on Pierre 
Corneille, Leibnitz, Molfere, and others; 
and the same qualities of style shown by 
these were maintained in his History of 
Astronomy (1775-871, his most exten¬ 
sive work. In 1784 the French Academy 
elected him a member. The revolution 
drew him into public life. Paris chose 
him, May 12, 1789, first deputy of the 
tiers-Hat, and in the assembly itself he 





Bailment 


Baird 


was made first president, a post occupied 
by him on June 20, 1789, in the session 
of the Tennis Court, when the deputies 
swore never to separate till they had 
given France a new constitution. As 
mayor of Paris his moderation and im- 



Jean Sylvain Bailly. 


partial enforcement of the law failed to 
commend themselves to the people, and his 
forcible suppression of mob violence, July 
17, 1791, aroused a storm which led to 
his resignation and retreat to Nantes. In 
1793 he attempted to join Laplace at 
Melun, but was recognized and sent to 
Paris, where he was condemned by the 
revolutionary tribunal, and executed on 
November 12. 

■Rcnlmpnf (bal'ment), in law, is the 
Ddiiiiiciib delivery of a chattel or thing 

to a person in trust, either for the use 
of the bailer or person delivering, or for 
that of the bailee or person to whom it is 
delivered. A bailment always supposes 
the subject to be delivered only for a 
limited time, at the expiration of which 
it must be redelivered to the bailer, the 
responsibility of the bailee being depend¬ 
ent, in some degree, upon the contract 
on which the bailment is made. Pledg¬ 
ing and letting for hire are species of bail¬ 
ment. 

Bailv (b^'le), Edward Hodges, an Eng- 
- UclAA J lish sculptor, born at Bristol about 
1788; died in 1867. He studied under 
Flaxman and at the Royal Academy, 
where he won the gold and silver medals. 
His best works include Eve at the Foun¬ 
tain, Psyche, Hercules casting Hylas 
into the Sea, etc., with statues of Lord 
Mansfield, Nelson, and other men of note. 
"Railv Francis, astronomer, born in 
a J 9 Berkshire, in 1774; settled in 
London as a stockbroker in 1802. While 


thus actively engaged he published Tables 
for the Purchasing and Renewing of 
Leases, the Doctrine of Interest and An¬ 
nuities, the Doctrine of Life Annuities 
and Assurances, and an epitome of uni¬ 
versal history. On retiring from business 
with an ample fortune in 1825 he turned 
his attention to astronomy, became one of 
the founders of the Astronomical Society, 
contributed to its Transactions, and in 
1835 published a life of Flamsteed. He 
died in 1844. 


Baily’s Beads, » phenomenon at- 
J 7 tending eclipses of the 

sun, the unobscured edge of which appears 
discontinuous and broken immediately be¬ 
fore and after the moment of complete 
obscuration. It is classed as an effect of 
irradiation. 

Bain ( ban )’ Alexander, writer on 
mental philosophy and education, 
was born at Aberdeen in 1818. He was 
educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, 
and after holding minor positions in 1860 
was appointed professor of logic and Eng¬ 
lish in Aberdeen University, a post which 
he held till his resignation in 1881. His 
most important works are: The Senses 
and the Intellect, the Emotions and 
the Will, together forming a complete ex¬ 
position of the human mind : Mental and 
Moral Science; Logic, Deductive and In¬ 
ductive; Mind and Body: Education as a 
Science; James Mill, a Biography; John 
Stuart Mill, besides an English Gram¬ 
mar, Manual of English Composition and 
Rhetoric, etc. He died in 1903. 

Bainbrid^e (ban'brij), William, an 
-Dcunuiluge American naval officer, 

was born at Princeton, New Jersey, in 
1774, entered the navy, in 1798, served 
with distinction against France that year 
and next; in 1800, as captain, carried 
tribute to Algiers, where he was humili¬ 
ated by the dey, and in 1804 he was taken 
prisoner by the Tripolitans. He served 
with marked success in the war of 1812. 
Tn 1815 he commanded a squadron against 
Algiers. In 1824-7 he was a member 
of the Board of Navy Commissioners in 
Washington. He died in 1833. 

"Renram (bi'ram), the Easter of the Mo- 
uciiid i h amme d ang , which follows im¬ 
mediately after the Ramadan or Lent (a 
month of fasting), and lasts three days. 
This feast during the course of thirty- 
three years makes a complete circuit of 
all the months and seasons, as the Turks 
reckon by lunar years. Sixty days after 
this first great Bairam begins the lesser 
Bairam. They are the only two feasts 
prescribed bv the Mohammedan religion. 
Baird ( bRr( b> Sir David, a distinguished 
xjdiiu 3 r jtish commander, was born in 
Edinburghshire in 1757, and entered the 






Baird 


Baja 


army in 1772. Having been promoted to 
a lieutenancy in 1778, he sailed for India, 
distinguished himself as a captain in the 
war against Hyder Ali, was wounded and 
taken prisoner, and confined in the for¬ 
tress of Seringapatam for nearly four 
years. He and his fellow-prisoners were 
treated with great barbarity, and many 
of them died or were put to death, but at 
last (in 1784) all that survived were set 
at liberty. Made a major in 1787 and 
lieutenant colonel in 1791, he commanded 
a brigade under Cornwallis in the war 
against Tiopoo. Appointed major-gen¬ 
eral in 1798, he returned to India. In 
1799 he commanded the storming party 
at the assault of Seringapatam, and, in 
requital, was presented with the state 
sword of Tippoo Saib. Being appointed 
in 1800 to command an expedition to 
Egypt, he landed at Kosseir in June, 



Sir David Baird. 


1801, crossed the desert, and, embarking 
on the Nile, descended to Cairo, and 
thence to Alexandria, which he reached a 
few days before it surrendered to General 
Hutchinson. Next year he returned to 
India, but being soon after superseded 
by Sir Arthur Wellesley (Wellington), 
he sailed for Britain, where he was 
knighted and made K.C.B. With the 
rank of lieutenant-general he commanded 
an expedition in 1805 to the Cape of 
Good Hope, and in 1806, after defeating 
the Dutch, he received the surrender of 
the colony. He commanded a division at 
the siege of Copenhagen, and after a 
short period of service in Ireland sailed 
with 10,000 men for Corunna, where he 
formed a junction with Sir John Moore. 
He commanded the first division of 
Moore’s army, and in the battle of Co¬ 
runna lost his left arm. By the death of 
Sir John Moore Sir David succeeded to 
23—1 


the chief command, receiving for the 
fourth time the thanks of Parliament and 
a baronetcy. In 1814 he was made a 
general. He died in 1829. 

Baird Spencer Fullerton, naturalist, 

5 born at Reading, Pennsylvania, 
in 1823. He was assistant secretary, and 
afterwards secretary, of the Smithsonian 
Institution, Washington, and was also 
chief government commissioner of fish 
and fisheries. He wrote much on natural 
history, his chief works being The Birds 
of N. America (in conjunction with John 
Cassin) ; The Mammals of N. America; 
Review of American Birds in the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution; and (with Messrs. 
Brewer and Ridgeway) History of North 
American Birds. He died in 1887. 
‘RcnvpntTi (bl-roit'), a well-built and 
ct icut i pi easan tiy_ s ituated town of 

Bavaria, on the Red Main, 41 miles 
northeast of Niirnberg. The principal 
edifices, besides churches, are the old and 
the new palace, the opera-house, the 
gymnasium, and the national theater, 
constructed after the design of the com¬ 
poser Wagner, and opened in 1876 with 
a grand performance of his tetralogy of 
the Nibelungen Ring. Industries: cotton 
spinning, sugar refining, musical instru¬ 
ments, sewing-machines, leather, brew¬ 
ing, etc. There is a monument to Jean 
Paul F. Richter, who died here. Pop. 
29,384. 

BaillS ( bius )* or De Bay > Michael. 

Catholic theologian, was born 
1513, in Hainaut, educated at Louvain, 
made professor of theology there in 1563 
or 1564, and chosen a member of the 
Council of Trent. Leaving the scholastic 
method, he founded systematic theology 
directly upon the Bible and the Christian 
fathers, of whom he particularly followed 
St. Augustine. His doctrines of original 
sin and of salvation by grace led to his 
persecution as a heretic by the old Scot- 
ists and the Jesuits, who succeeded in 
obtaining a papal bull in 1567 con¬ 
demning the doctrines imputed to him. 
Baius, however, remained in the posses¬ 
sion of his dignities, was appointed in 
1578 chancellor of Louvain University; 
and the King of Spain even conferred 
upon him the office of inquisitor-general 
in the Netherlands. He died in 1589. 
His Augustinian views descended to the 
Jansenists, while his doctrine of pure, 
undivided love to God formed the staple 
of Quietism. 

Baize ( baz )> a sort of coarse woolen 
fabric with a rough nap, now 
generally used for linings, and mostly 
green or red in color. 

Baia ( bo 'y°)> a market town of Hungary, 
J district of Bacs, on the Danube, 



Bajaderes 


Baker 


with a trade in grain and wine, and a 
large annual hog fair. Pop. 20,361. 

Bajaderes. See Bayaderes. 

■Rciiavp-I- (ba-ya-zet'), or Bayasid, I, 
a Turkish emperor. In 1389, 
having strangled his brother Jacob, he 
succeeded his father Murad or Amurath, 
who fell in the battle of Cassova against 
the Servians. From the rapidity of his 
conquests he received the name of II- 
derim, the Lightning. In three years he 
subjected Bulgaria, part of Servia, 
Macedonia, Thessaly, and the states of 
Asia Minor, and besieged Constantinople 
for ten years, defeating Sigismund and 
the allied Hungarians, Poles, and French, 
in 1395. The attack of Timur (Tamer¬ 
lane) on Natolia, in 1400, saved the 
Greek Empire, Bajazet being defeated 
and taken prisoner by him near Ancyra, 
Galatia, in 1402. The story of his being 
carried about in a cage by Timur is im¬ 
probable ; but Bajazet died in 1409, in 
Timur’s camp, in Caramania. His suc¬ 
cessor was Soliman I. 

■Ra-ia^o! TT succeeded his father, Mo- 
JJdjdzei ±1 bam med II, sultan of the 

Turks, in 1481. He increased the Turk¬ 
ish Empire by conquests on the N. w. and 
in the E., took Lepanto, Modon, and 
Durazzo in a war against the Venetians, 
and ravaged the coasts of the Christian 
states on the Mediterranean, to revenge 
the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. 
Having abdicated in favor of his younger 
son Selim, he died on his way to a resi¬ 
dence near Adrianople in 1513. He did 
much for the improvement of his empire 
and the promotion of the sciences. 
"Rainprn or Baiocco (ba-yok'o), was a 

AJctjuo , CO p per coin in the p a p a i 

States, the hundredth part of a scudo, or 
rather more than a halfpenny. The name 
was also given in Sicily to the Neapolitan 
grano, the hundredth part of the ducato, 
80 cts. 

BajllS. See Baius. 


Baiza (^oi'za), Anton, Hungarian lyric 
J poet, historian, and critic, born 
in 1804; died in 1858. As contributor and 
editor of various periodicals he played 
an important part in the development of 
modern Hungarian literature and drama. 
A volume of his poems, of high merit, 
was published in 1835. He also trans¬ 
lated a collection of foreign dramas, 
and edited a series of historical works. 


Bakalahari (b&dsa-la-ha'ri) aBechu- 
ana tribe inhabiting the 
Kalahari Desert, South Africa. 

Bakarerani (bak-ur-gunj'), a maritime 
° J district and town in Ben¬ 
gal; chief rivers: Ganges, Brahmaputra, 


and Meglina. Area, 3649 sq. miles. 
Pop. 2,154,000. The town lies in ruins. 
"RaVcm (ba'kou), a town of Roumania, on 
XJcUAd u th0 Bistr i tza . pop. 16,187. 

ycii (b a k-c h i-s a-r I'), or 

uaKcmsarai Bagtcheserai (bag _ 

che-se-rl'; Turkish, ‘Garden Palace’), an 
ancient town of Russia, in the Crimea, 
picturesquely situated at the bottom of a 
narrow valley, hemmed in by precipices. 
It contains the palace of the ancient 
Crimean khans. Pop. 16,000. 

T)nira« Sir Benjamin, a civil engineer, 
cuaci > born at Batb> England, in 1840, 

died in 1908. He took part in many 
important works of engineering, and in 
1877 designed a cylindrical ship in which 
the obelisk, Cleopatra’s Needle, was 
brought from Egypt to England. His 
great work was the Forth Bridge, Scot¬ 
land, built in conjunction with Sir John 
Fowler. 


nnW Sir Richard, an English his- 
ojaxvcx, toria]1} born in Kent in 156g? 

educated at Oxford, knighted in 1603 
by James I, and in 1620 appointed high 
sheriff of Oxfordshire, where he had es¬ 
tates. Having given security for a debt 
incurred by his wife’s family, he was 
thrown into Fleet Prison, where, after 
continuing some years, he died in 1645. 
During his imprisonment he wrote some 
devotional books and his Chronicle of 
the Kings of England, first published in 
1641, and afterwards continued by Ed¬ 
ward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, 
and others—a work of great popularity 
in its day, though of no permanent value. 
"Rakpr SlR Samuel White, a distin- 
a J guished English traveler, born 
in 1821. He resided some years in Cey¬ 
lon ; in 1861 began his African travels, 
which lasted several years, in the Upper 
Nile regions, and resulted, among other 
discoveries, in that of Albert Nyanza 
in 1864, and of the exit of the White 
Nile from it. In Africa he encountered 
Speke and Grant after their discovery of 
the Victoria Nyanza. On his return 
home he was received with great honor 
and was knighted. In 1869 he returned 
to Africa^ as head of an expedition sent 
by the Khedive of Egypt to annex and 
open up to trade a large part of the 
newly explored country, being raised to 
the dignity of pasha. He returned in 
1873, having finished his work, and was 
succeeded by the celebrated Gordon. His 
writings, include: The Rifle and the 
Hound in Ceylon ; Eight Years' Wander¬ 
ings in Ceylon; The Albert Nyanza, etc.; 
The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia. He 
died Dec. 30, 1893. 

Baker Thomas, antiquary, born in 
9 1656, educated at Cambridge. 



Baker City 


Bakunin 


As a non-juror he lost his living at Long- 
Newton in 1690, and was compelled to 
resign his fellowship on the accession of 
George I, but continued to reside at St. 
John’s College till his death in 1740. 
His Reflections on Learning (1709-10) 
went through seven editions. He left in 
MS. forty-two folio volumes of an 
Athena; Cantabrigienses, from which a 
History of St. John's College was edited 
by Professor Mayor in 1869. 

"Ra Vpv PiItt capital of Baker Co., Ore- 
x>d!S.ci gon; on the Powder River; 

in a gold and silver mining district. Has 
woodworking and other industries. Pop. 
6742. 

"Ra Varcfi Aid a city,the county seat of 
-DdKCI bllClU, Kern Co>> California, on 

the Kern River, 300 miles s. e. of San 
Francisco. It is a shipping point for pro¬ 
duce, and has oil refineries, fruit-pack¬ 
ing works, carshops, etc. Pop. 12,727. 
"RqVawaII (bak'wel), an ancient market- 
town England> county of 
Derby, between Buxton and Matlock, 
possessing a fine Gothic church, a chalyb¬ 
eate spring, a cotton-mill erected by 
Arkwright, and a large marble-cutting 
industry. Pop. 3078. 

■Ra VawaI 1 Robert, an English agricul- 
xjciis.c c ’ turist, celebrated for his im¬ 
provements in the breeding of sheep, 
cattle, and horses, was born in Leicester¬ 
shire in 1725, and died in 1795. He com¬ 
menced experiments in breeding sheep 
about 1755, upon his father’s farm at 
Dishley, and for fifty years devoted him¬ 
self to the acquisition and diffusion of 
information upon the subject. He was 
the originator of the Leicestershire breed 
of sheep, which have since been so well 
known, and also of a breed of cattle 
that had great repute in their day. 
Various improvements in farm manage¬ 
ment were also introduced by him. 
■RolrTimnl (bak-mot'), a town of Russia, 
125 mileg E of Yekaterinos- 
lap; here are large deposits of salt and 
coal. Pop. 20,000. 

Bakhuisen. See BacJchuysen. 

R q Vi Yi o* (bak'ing), a term used in various 
iJcHliiig senses> For the baking of bread, 

see Bread. A common application of the 
term is to a mode of cooking food in a 
close oven, baking in this case being 
opposed to roasting or broiling, in which 
an open fire is used. The oven should 
not be too close, but ought to be prop¬ 
erly ventilated. Baking is also applied 
to the hardening of earthenware or por¬ 
celain by fire. 

Baking Powder, 

tartaric acid, usually with some flour 


added. The water of the dough causes 
the liberation of carbonic acid, which 
makes the bread ‘ rise.’ 

Bakony Wald n ' y * K 5 

J thic k 1 y-w o o d e d 

mountain range dividing the Hungarian 
plains, famous for the herds of swine fed 
on its mast. 

"RaV^llisll (bak-shish'), an Eastern 
term for a present or gratu¬ 
ity. A demand for bakshish meets trav¬ 
elers in the East everywhere from 
Turkey and Egypt to Hindustan. 
Baku (ba-ko'), a Russian port on the 

western shore of the Caspian, 
occupying part of the peninsula of Ap¬ 
sheron. The naphtha or petroleum 
springs of Baku have long been known; 
and the ‘ Field of Fire,’ so called from 
emitting inflammable gases, has long 
been a place of pilgrimage with the 
Guebres or Fire-worshipers. Recently, 
from the development of the petroleum 
industry, Baku has greatly increased, and 
is now a large and flourishing town. 
Over 1500 oil-wells are in operation, pro¬ 
ducing immense quantities of petroleum, 
much of which is led direct in pipes 
from the wells to the refineries in Baku. 
Some of the wells have had such an out¬ 
flow of oil as to be unmanageable, and 
the Baku petroleum now competes suc¬ 
cessfully with any other in the markets 
of the world, more than 60.000,000 bar¬ 
rels being produced annually. This is a 
falling off since 1901, when 85,000,000 
barrels were produced. It is a heavy 
product, yielding a small percentage of 
burning oil, but the cheapness of the 
crude oil enables it to be refined profit¬ 
ably, since the remaining material can 
be sold for fuel. Baku is the station 
of the Caspian fleet, is strongly fortified, 
and has a large shipping trade. The pop¬ 
ulation grew from 12,400, in 1870, to over 
100,000 in 1900. 

‘RaVnrnn (ba-ku'nen), Michael, a 
Russian anarchist, founder of 
Nihilism, born in 1814 of a rich and noble 
family, entered the army, but threw up 
his commission after two years’ service, 
and studied philosophy at Moscow, with 
his friends Herzen, Turgenieff, Granow- 
ski (historian), and Belinski (critic). 
Having adopted Hegel’s system as the 
basis of a new revolution, he went in 
1841 to Berlin, and thence to Dresden, 
Geneva, and Paris, as the propagandist 
of anarchism. Wherever he went he was 
influential for disturbance, and after un¬ 
dergoing imprisonment in various states, 
was handed over to Russia in 1851 by 
Austria, imprisoned for five years, and 
finally sent to Siberia. Escaping thence 
through Japan, he joined Herzen in Lon- 



Bala 


Balance 


don on the staff of the Kolokol. His ex¬ 
treme views, however, ruined the paper 
and led to a quarrel with Marx and the 
International; and having fallen into dis¬ 
repute with hig own party in Russia, he 
died suddenly and almost alone at Berne, 
in 1878. He demanded the entire aboli¬ 
tion of the state, the absolute equaliza¬ 
tion of individuals, and the extirpation of 
hereditary rights and of religion, his con¬ 
ception of the next stage of social 
progress being purely negative and anni- 
hilatory. 

"Do 1 p (ba'la), a lake 4 miles long, and a 
clAcl small town of N. .Wales, in Merio¬ 
nethshire. 

"Ralaarn (ba'lam), a heathen seer, in- 
-Ddiacuii yited by Balak> King 0 f Moab, 

to curse the Israelites, but compelled by 
miracle to bless them instead (Numbers, 
xxii-xxiv). In another account he is 
represented as aiding in the perversion 
of the Israelites to the worship of Baal, 
and as being, therefore, slain in the 
Midianitish war (Numbers, xxxi ; Joshua, 
xiii). He is the subject of many rab¬ 
binical fables, the Targumists and Tal¬ 
mudists regarding him, as most of the 
fathers did, in the light of an impious 
and godless man. 

TOola "RpHq a local deposit, in the Bala 

J3aia -Deub, district? North Wales> con _ 

sisting of slates, grits, sandstones, and 
limestones, there being two limestones 
separated by sandy and slaty rocks about 
1400 ft. thick. They contain trilobites of 
many specie*, as well as other fossils. 
The lower Bala limestone (25 ft. thick) 
may be traced over a large area in North 
Wales. 

Balachons: (ba-la-chong'), an oriental 
° condiment, composed of 
small fishes, or shrimps, pounded up with 
salt and spices and then dried. 

"Ra 1 5 Pn a (ba-le'na), the genus which in¬ 
cludes the Greenland or right 
whale, type of the family Balsenidae, or 
whalebone whales. 

Balfpnirprm (ba-le'ni-seps ; ‘ whale- 

ndidili iceps head , )? a genug Qf wading 

birds belonging to the Soudan, inter¬ 
mediate between the herons and, storks, 
and characterized by an enormous bill, 
broad and swollen, giving the only 
known species (B. rex), also called shoe- 
bird, a peculiar appearance. It feeds on 
fishes, water snakes, carrion, etc., and 
makes its nest in reeds or grass adjoin¬ 
ing water. The bill is yellow, blotched 
with dark brown, the general color of the 
plumage dusky gray, the head, neck, and 
breast slaty, the legs blackish. 

Balsenoptera 0>a-le-nop'ter-a), the 
B genus to which the 
rorqual whale belongs. See Rorqual. 


Tlalairarli (ba-la-gar ), a town of Hin- 

x»didgaiii dustan iu the p un j ab> pop. 

11,233. 

Balaklava (ba-la-kla'v&), a small sea¬ 
port in the Crimea, 8 miles 
s. s. e. of Sevastopol, consisting, for the 
most part, of houses perched upon 
heights, with an old Genoese castle on an 
almost inaccessible elevation. The har¬ 
bor has a very narrow entrance, and 
though deep, is not capacious. In the 
Crimean war it was captured by the 
British and a heroically fought battle 
took place here (Oct. 25, 1854), ending 
in the repulse of the Russians by the 
British. The ‘ charge of the Light Bri¬ 
gade ’ was at this battle. 

Balalaika 0>&-la-lI'kA), a musical in¬ 
strument of very ancient 
Slavonic origin, common among the Rus¬ 
sians and Tatars. It is a narrow, shal¬ 
low guitar with only two strings. 
Balance (bal'ans), an instrument em¬ 
ployed for determining the 
quantity of any substance equal to a 
given weight. Balances are of various 
forms; in that most commonly used a 
horizontal beam rests so as to turn easily 
upon a certain point known as the center 
of motion. From the extremities of 
the beam, called the center of suspen¬ 
sion, hang the scales; and a slender metal 
tongue midw^ay between them, and directly 
over the center of motion, indicates when 
the beam is level. The characteristics of 
a good balance are: 1st, that the beam 
should rest in a horizontal position when 
the scales are either empty or loaded with 
equal weights ; 2d, that a very small addi¬ 
tion of weight put into either scale should 
cause the beam to deviate from the level, 
which property is denominated the sen¬ 
sibility of the balance; 3d, that when 
the beam is deflected from the horizontal 
position by inequality of the weights in 
the scales, it should have a tendency 
speedily to restore itself and come to 
rest in the level, which property is called 
the stability of the balance. To secure 
these qualities the arms of the beam 
should be exactly similar, equal in weight 
and length, and as long as possible; the 
centers of gravity and suspension should 
be in one straight line, and the center of 
motion immediately above the center of 
gravity; and the center of motion and the 
centers of suspension should cause as 
little friction as possible. The center 
of motion ought to be a knife-edge; 
and if the balance requires to be very 
delicate, the centers of suspension ought 
to be knife-edges also. For purposes of 
accuracy, balances have occasionally 
means of raising or depressing the center 
of gravity, of regulating the length of the* 



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Balance of Power 


Balanns 


arms, etc., and the whole apparatus is 
not infrequently enclosed in a glass case, 
to prevent the heat from expanding the 
arms unequally or currents of air from 
disturbing the equilibrium. 

Of the other forms of balance, the 
Roman balance, or steelyard , consists of 
a lever moving freely upon a suspended 
fulcrum, the shorter arm of the lever hav¬ 
ing a scale or pan attached to it, and the 
longer arm, along which slides a weight, 
being graduated to indicate quantities. It 
is commonly used for weighing loaded 
carts, for luggage at railway-stations, etc. 
A variety of this, the Danish balance, has 
the weight fixed at the end of the lever, 
the fulcrum being movable along the 
graduated index. The spring-balance 
shows the weight of articles by the ex¬ 
tent to which they draw out or compress 
a spiral spring. It is of service where a 
high degree of exactness is not required, 
and finds application in the dynamometer 
for measuring the force of machinery. 
An extremely ingenious balance, used in 
the mint and the bank of England for 
weighing ‘ blanks ’ and sovereigns, distrib¬ 
utes them automatically into three com¬ 
partments according as they are light, 
heavy, or the exact weight. 

Balance of Power, 

came to be recognized in modern Europe 
in the sixteenth century, though it ap¬ 
pears to have been also acted on by the 
Greeks in ancient times, in preserving 
the relations between their different 
states. The object in maintaining the 
balance of pow r er is to secure the general 
independence of nations as a whole, by 
preventing the aggressive attempts of in¬ 
dividual states to extend their territory 
and sway at the expense of weaker coun¬ 
tries. The first European monarch whose 
ambitious designs induced a combination 
of other states to counteract them was 
the Emperor Charles V, similar coali¬ 
tions being formed in the end of the 
seventeenth century, when the ambition 
of Louis XIV excited the fears of Eu¬ 
rope, and a century later against the ex¬ 
orbitant power and aggressive schemes 
of the first Napoleon. More recently still 
we have the instance of the Crimean war, 
entered into to check the ambition of 
Russia. Of late years there has been a 
marked tendency among British politi¬ 
cians to decry and impugn the principle 
of the balance of power, as calculated 
only to propagate a system of mutual 
hostility, and retard the cause of prog¬ 
ress, by the expenditure both of money 
and life thus occasioned. There can be 
no doubt, however, that to the carrying 
out of this principle the independence 


of some of the smaller and weaker Euro¬ 
pean states is fairly attributable. 

Balance of Trade, 

stated money values of the exports and 
imports of a country. The balance is er¬ 
roneously said to be ‘ in favor ’ of a coun¬ 
try when the value of the exports is in 
excess of that of the imports and * against 
it ’ when the imports are in excess of the 
exports. The phrases date from the days 
of the mercantile system, the character¬ 
istic doctrine of which alleged the desir¬ 
ability of regulating commerce with a 
view of amassing treasure by exporting 
produce largely, importing little merchan¬ 
dise in return, and receiving the balance 
in bullion. In certain conceivable 
political and industrial conditions this 
may have had beneficial results; but its 
importance was greatly overestimated, 
and the state of this balance came to be 
regarded as an invariable criterion of the 
industrial condition of a country. The 
false analogy of the successful merchant 
who gams more than he spends became 
the basis of popular reasoning, the prod¬ 
ucts of a country being mistakenly 
identified with its exports, its consump¬ 
tion with its importation. It is now 
generally recognized that if bullion be 
exported from a country it is because 
it is at the time the cheapest commodity 
available for export; and further, that 
there are certain natural limits to its un¬ 
due exportation, in that the increased 
scarcity of money is attended with a fall 
in the money-value of other commodities, 
which thus in turn become preferable ob¬ 
jects of exportation, while bullion flows 
back. The excess of the value of imports 
over that of exports, which is regarded 
by some as an adverse and alarming 
symptom in British trade, is in large part 
readily accounted for on the ground of 
shipping receipts, insurance returns, inter¬ 
est on capital, employment in foreign 
trade, merchants’ profits, and the income 
derived from foreign investments. 

Balanoglossus <bal-an-o-glos'us), a 
® worm-like animal of 

much interest from its seeming to form 
a link between the vertebrates and inverte¬ 
brates. It is a very soft-bodied creature, 
which lives in fine sand, which it appears 
to saturate with slime. Four species of 
its genus are known, their interesting 
feature being a structure which some 
look upon as the primitive aspect of the 
dorsal nerve chord, and the supporting 
axis of vertebrates. It has also gill slits 
like those of vertebrates. 

"RalamiQ (bal'a-nus; ‘acorn-shells’), a 

.Dd,id,iiu& genus Qf sesg . ]e cirripedg> 

family Balanidse, of which colonies are to 



Balapur 


Balbriggan 


be found on rocks at low water, on tim¬ 
bers, crustaceans, shells of mollusca, etc. 
They differ from the barnacles in having 
a symmetrical shell, and being destitute 
of a flexible stalk. The shell consists of 



Balanus Shells. 


six plates, with an operculum of four 
valves. They pass through a larval state 
in which they are not fixed, moving by 
means of swimming feet which disap¬ 
pear in the final state. All the Balanidae 
are hermaphrodite. A South American 
species ( Balanus psittacus ) is eaten on 
the coast of Chile, the Balanus tintin- 
nabulum by the Chinese. The old Roman 
epicures esteemed the larger species. 
"Rala-nnr (ba-la-pur), town of India in 
jQctidjJ ui ^kola district, Berar, with 

strong fort and fine pavilion of black 
stone. Pop. about 10,000. 

BalaS (bal'as), a name used to distinguish 
a a the rose-colored species of ruby 
from the ruby proper. 

■RalQcnr (bal-a-sor'), a seaport town, 
Ddidbui Hindustan, presidency of Ben¬ 
gal, province of Orissa, headquarters of 
a district and subdivision bearing the 
same name. It carries on a considerable 
traffic with Calcutta. Pop. about 20,000. 
Balata (ba-la'ta), a gum yielded by 
Mimusops Balata , a tree grow¬ 
ing abundantly in British, French, and 
Dutch Guiana, Honduras and Brazil, ob¬ 
tained in a milky state by * tapping ’ the 
tree, and hardening to a substance like 
leather. Used for similar purposes to 
India rubber, and in the U. States chewed 
as a masticatory. 

"Rainton (bo'lo-ton), or Plattensee 
JJdld tun (pl4t _ tin _ zr)< a lake of Hun _ 

gary, 55 miles s. w. of Pesth; length, 50 
miles; breadth, 3 to 10 miles ; area, about 
390 square miles. Of its 32 feeders the 
Szala is the largest, and the lake com¬ 
municates with the Danube by the rivers 
Sio and Sarviz. It abounds with a 
species of perch. 

Balbec. See Baalbek. 


Balbi ( bal ' bg )> Adrien, geographer and 
statistician, born at Venice in 1782. 
In 1808 his first work on geography pro¬ 
cured his appointment as professor of 


geography in the College of San Michele 
at Murano, and he became in 1811 pro¬ 
fessor of natural philosophy in the 
Lyceum at Fermo. In 1820 he proceeded 
to Portugal, and collected there materials 
for his Essai Statistique sur le Royaume 
de Portugal et d* Algarve and Varietis 
Politiques et Statistiques de la Monar¬ 
chic Portugaise, both published in 1822 
at Paris, where he resided till 1832. He 
then settled in Padua, where he died in 
1848. Balbi’s admirable Abr6g6 de Geo¬ 
graphic was written at Paris, and trans¬ 
lated into the principal European lan¬ 
guages. 

Balbi Gaspar0 > a Venetian dealer in 
, precious stones, born about the 
middle of the sixteenth century, who 
traveled first to Aleppo and thence down 
the Euphrates and Tigris to the Malabar 
coast, sailing finally for Pegu, where he 
remained for two years. His Viaggio all ’ 
Indie Orientale, published on his return 
to Venice in 1590. contains the earliest 
account of India beyond the Ganges. 
Balbo ( ba ^ bo )* Cesare, Italian author 
and statesman, born in 1789 at 
Turin. After holding one or two posts 
under the patronage of Napoleon, he de¬ 
voted himself to history, publishing a 
history of Italy prior to the period of 
Charlemagne, a compendium of Italian 
history, etc. His Speranze d ’ Italia 
(1843). a statement of the political con¬ 
dition of Italy, and of the practicable 
ideals to be kept in view, gave him a 
wide reputation. He died in 1853. 
Balboa ( bal - b5 ' a ), vasco Nunez de, 

one of the early Spanish adven¬ 
turers in the New World ; born in 1475. 
Having dissipated his fortune, he went 
to America, and was at Darien with the 
expedition of Francisco de Enciso in 
1510. An insurrection placed him at 
the head of the colony, but rumors of a 
western ocean and of the wealth of Peru 
led him to cross the isthmus. On Sept. 
25, 1513. he saw for the first time the 
Pacific, and after annexing it to Spain, 
and acquiring information about Peru, 
returned to Darien. Here he found him¬ 
self supplanted by a new governor, Pe- 
drarias Davila, with much consequent 
grievance on the one side and much 
jealousy on the other. Balboa submitted, 
however, and in the following year was 
appointed viceroy of the South Sea. 
Davila was apparently reconciled to 
him, and gave him his daughter in mar¬ 
riage, but shortly after, in 1517, had him 
beheaded on a charge of intent to rebel. 
Pizarro, who afterwards completed the 
discovery of Peru, served under Balboa. 

Balbrisrsran ( bal - b ^g'g a n), a seaport 

250 and favorite watering- 




Balcony 


Baldung 


place, of Ireland, county of Dublin; cele¬ 
brated for its hosiery. Pop. 2200. 
BalconV ( bal ' k o _ni )> in architecture, is 
J a gallery projecting from the 
outer wall of a building, supported by 
columns or brackets, and surrounded by a 
balustrade. Balconies were not used in 
Greek and Roman buildings, and in the 
East the roof of the house has for centu¬ 
ries served similar purposes on a larger 
scale. Balconies properly so styled came 
into fashion in Italy in the middle ages, 
and were apparently introduced into 
Britain in the sixteenth century. 
Baldachin (bal'da-kin; It. baldachi- 

no), a canopy or tent-like 
covering of any material, either suspended 
from the roof, fastened to the wall, or 
supported on pillars over altars, thrones, 
pulpits, beds, portals, etc. Portable 
baldachins of rich materials were for¬ 
merly used to shield the heads of digni- 



Baldachin, Church of S. Ambrose, Milan. 

taries in processions, and are still so used 
in the processions of the Catholic Church 
and in the East. The enormous bronze 
baldachin of Bernini placed over the tomb 
of the apostles in St. Peter’s at Rome is 
one of the most famous, though surpassed 
in beauty by many in other European 
cathedrals and churches. 

Balder orBALDUB (harder, bal'dor), a 
a f Scandinavian divinity, repre¬ 
sented as the son of Odin and Frigga, 
beautiful, wise, amiable, and beloved by 
all the gods. His mother took an oath 
from every creature, and even from every 
inanimate object, that they would not 
harm Balder, but omitted the mistletoe. 
Balder was therefore deemed invulnera¬ 
ble, and the other gods in sport flung 
stones and shot arrows at him without 


harming him. But the evil god Loki 
fashioned an arrow from the mistletoe 
and got Balder’s blind brother Hoder to 
shoot it, himself guiding his aim. 
Balder fell dead, pierced to the heart, 
to the deep grief of all the gods. He is 
believed to be a personification of the 
brightness and beneficence of the sun. 
See Northern Mythology. 


Baldi ( bal ' de ) * Bernardino, mathema¬ 
tician, theologian, geographer, 
historian, poet, etc., born at Urbino, in 
1533; studied at Padua ; became abbot of 
Guastalla. He knew upwards of twelve 
languages, and is said to have written 
over a hundred works, most of which re¬ 
main in MS. His works include a poem 
on navigation, various translations and 
commentaries, Lives of Celebrated Mathe¬ 
maticians , etc. He died in 1617. 

Vipcjq loss of the hair, complete 
c > or partial, usually the lat¬ 
ter, and due to various causes. Most 
commonly it results as one of the changes 
belonging to old age, due to wasting of 
the skin, hair sacs, etc. It may occur as 
a result of some acute disease or at an 
unusually early age without any such 
cause. In both the latter cases it is due 
to defective nourishment of the hair, ow¬ 
ing to lessened circulation of the blood 
in the scalp. The best treatment for 
preventing loss of hair seems to consist in 
such measures as bathing the head with 
cold water and drying it by vigorous rub¬ 
bing with a rough towel and brushing it 
well with a hard brush. Various stimu¬ 
lating lotions are also recommended, espe¬ 
cially those containing cantharides. But 
probably in most cases senile baldness is 
unpreventable. When extreme scurfiness 
of the scalp accompanies loss of the hair 
an ointment that will clear away the 
scurf will prove beneficial. 


Baldovinetti (bal-do-ve-net'te), Ales- 
JDd-lUU Vine til SIQ< a Florentine artistf 

born in 1422. Few of his works remain 

except a nativity in the Church of the 

Annunziato and two altar-pieces in the 

Gallery of the Uffizi and the Academy of 

Arts, Florence. Died 1499. 

"Raidrip (bald'rik), a broad belt former- 
uctiuiio ly worn ovef the right or left 

shoulder diagonally across the body, often 
highly decorated and enriched with gems, 
and used not only to sustain the sword, 
dagger, or horn but also for purposes of 
ornament, and as a military or heraldic 
symbol. The fashion appears to have 
reached its height in the fifteenth century. 
■Ral'dnno* Hans, or Hans Grun 
° (grun), German painter and 

wood engraver, born in Swabia in 1470; 
died in Strasburg in 1552. His work, though 
inferior to Durer’s, possessed many of the 




















































Baldwin I 


Balen 


same characteristics, and on this account 
he has been sometimes considered a pupil 
of the Nuremberg master. His princi¬ 
pal paintings are the series of panels (of 
the date 1516) over the altar in Freiburg 
cathedral; others of his works are to be 
found at Berlin, Colmar, and Basel. His 
numerous and often fantastic engravings 
have the monogram H. and B., with a 
small g in the center of the H. 

f \xn n T Emperor of Constantino- 
Wlil pie, founder of the short¬ 
lived dynasty of Latin sovereigns of the 
Eastern empire, was born in 1172, and 
was hereditary Count of Flanders and 
Hainault. His courage and conduct in 
the fourth crusade led to his unanimous 
election as Emperor of the East after the 
capture of Constantinople by the French 
and Venetians in 1204. In the absence 
of Baldwin’s brother with a large part 
of the army, the Greeks rose in revolt 
under the instigation of Joannices, King 
of Bulgaria. Baldwin marched on Adria- 
nople, but was taken prisoner and died 
in captivity, 1206. Baldwin was suc¬ 
ceeded by his brother Henry. —Baldwin 
II, fifth and last Latin Emperor of 
Constantinople, was born in 1217. Dur¬ 
ing his minority John de Brienne was 
regent, but on his assuming the power 
himself the empire fell to pieces. In 
1261 Constaninople was taken by the 
forces of Michael Palaeologus, and Bald¬ 
win retired to Italy, dying in 1270. 

King of Jerusalem, reigned 
1100-18, having assumed 
the title which his elder brother Godfrey 
de Bouillon had refused. He subdued 
Caesarea, Ashdod, Tripolis, and Acre.— 
Baldwin II, his cousin and successor, 
reigned 1118-31. During his reign the 
reduction of Tyre and the institution of 
the order of Templars took place.— 
Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem from 
1143 to 1162, was son and successor of 
Foulques of Anjou, and the embodiment 
of the best aspects of chivalry. After de¬ 
feating Noureddin in 1152, and again in 
1157, he was enabled to devote himself 
to the hopeless task of improving the 
kingdom and establishing the Christian 
chivalry in the East. His death in 1162 
was almost immediately followed by the 
total collapse of the kingdom. 

B&1.6 (bal). See Basel. 

Bale JoHN ' an English ecclesiastic, 
born in Suffolk in 1495, died in 1563. 
Although educated a Roman Catholic, he 
became a Protestant, and the intoler¬ 
ance of the Catholic party drove him to 
the Netherlands. On the accession of 
Edward VI he returned to England, was 
presented to the living of Bishop’s Stoke. 


Baldwin I, 


Southampton, and soon after nominated 
Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. Here, on 
his preaching the reformed religion, the 
popular fury against him reached such a 
pitch that in one tumult five of his 
domestics were murdered in his presence. 
On the accession of Mary he lay some 
time concealed in Dublin, and after many 
hardships found refuge in Switzerland. 
At her death he was appointed by Eliza¬ 
beth a prebend of Canterbury, where he 
died. His fame as an author rests upon 
his Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Bri¬ 
tannia Gatalogus, or ‘ An Account of the 
Lives of Eminent Writers of Britain,’ 
commencing with Japhet the son of Noah, 
and ending with the year 1557. It is 
compiled from various writers, chiefly 
from the antiquary Leland. He was also 
the author of nineteen miracle plays, 
printed in 1558. 

Balearic Crane (Baiearica pavom- 

na ), a handsome 
species of crested crane inhabiting North¬ 
west Africa. 

Balearic (bal-e-ar'ik) Islands, a group 
of five islands, s. e. of Spain, 
including Majorca, Minorca, Iviza, For- 
mentera and Cabrera. The popular der¬ 
ivation of the ancient name Baleares 
(Gr. ballein, to throw) has reference to 
the repute of the inhabitants for their 
skill in slinging, in which they distin¬ 
guished themselves both in the army of 
Hannibal and under the Romans, by 
whom the islands were annexed in 123 
B.C. After being taken by the Vandals, 
under Genseric, and in the eighth cen¬ 
tury by the Moors, they were taken by 
James I, King of Aragon, 1220-34, and 
constituted a kingdom, which in 1375 
was united to Spain, The islands now 
form a Spanish province, with an area 
of 1860 square miles, and 312,646 in¬ 
habitants. See separate articles. 
Baleeil (ba-len'), whale-bone in the 
rough or natural state. 
Bale-fire (A. Saxon 6 wl, a great fire), 
in its older and strict mean¬ 
ing any great fire kindled in the open air. 
or in a special sense the fire of a funerai 
pile. It has frequently been used as 
synonymous with beacon-fire, or a fire 
kindled as a signal, Sir Walter Scott hav¬ 
ing apparently been the first to employ 
it in this sense; and it has at various 
times, with even less reason, been con¬ 
founded with ‘bale’ in the sense of evil 
or fatal. 

Balen (ba'^n), Hendrik van, painter, 
born at Antwerp 1560 ; died 1632. 

His works, chiefly classical, religious, and 
allegorical—some of them executed in 
partnership with Breughel—are to be 
found in most of the European galleries. 



Bales 


Balfroosh 


He was the first master of Vandyck and 
Snyders. Three of his sons also followed 
the art, but the best of them, John van 
Balen (1611-54), was inferior to his 
father. 

Hal pc (balz), Peter, a famous calig- 
aAca rapher, born in London in 1547, 
died about 1610. His skill in microg¬ 
raphy is referred to by Holinshed and 
Evelyn. He was one of the early in¬ 
ventors of shorthand, and is said to have 
been employed to imitate signatures by 
Sir Francis Walsingham during the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth. 

Balfe Michael William, com¬ 

poser, was born in Dublin May 
15, 1808. In his seventh year he per¬ 
formed in public on the violin, and at six¬ 
teen took the part of the Wicked Hunts¬ 
man in Der Freischiitz at Drury Lane. 
In 1825 he went to Italy, wrote the 
music for a ballet La Peyrouse for the 
Scala theater at Milan, and in the follow¬ 
ing year sang at the Theatre Italien, 
Paris, with moderate success. He re¬ 
turned to Italy, and at Palermo produced 
his first opera, 7 Rivali (1829). For five 
years he continued singing and com¬ 
posing operas for the Italian stage. In 
1835 he returned to England, and his 
Siege of Rochelle , received with favor at 
Drury Lane, w’as followed by the Maid 
of Artois (1836), Joan of Are (1837), 
Falstaff (1838), Bohemian Girl (1843), 
Maid of Honor (1847), Rose of Castile 
(1857), Satanella (1858), Blanche de 
Nevers (1860), etc. The composer died 
October 20, 1870. His posthumous 

opera, The Talisman , was first per¬ 
formed in London in June, 1874. His 
operas are melodious and many of the 
airs are excellent. 

Balfour (bal'fur) Sir Andrew, a Scot- 
ajcii uu tish botanist and physician, 

born in Fifeshire in 1630. After com¬ 
pleting his studies at St. Andrews and 
London, he settled at Edinburgh, where 
he planned, with Sir Robert Sibbald, the 
Royal College of Physicians, and was 
elected its first president. Shortly before 
his death he laid the foundation of a hos¬ 
pital in Edinburgh, which though at first 
narrow and confined, expanded into the 
Royal Infirmary. He died in 1694. His 
familiar letters were published in 1700. 
Balfour Arthur James, an English 
’ statesman, born in 1848, edu¬ 
cated at Cambridge, entered Parliament in 
1874 and became private secretary to his 
uncle, Lord Salisbury. He was made 
secretary for Scotland in 1886; chief 
secretary for Ireland in 1889: was first 
lord of the treasury and leader of the 
House 1892-3 and after 1895. He suc¬ 
ceeded Lord Salisbury as Unionist Prime 


Minister in 1902, holding the post until 
1907. He is the author of Conditions of 
Belief and other works. 


Balfour, 


Francis Maitland, an em¬ 
bryologist, born in 1851, 


studied at Harrow and Trinity College, 
Cambridge. Articles on his special study 
gained him a high reputation while still 
an undergraduate, and after further work 
at Naples he published in 1874, in con¬ 
junction with Dr. M. Foster, the Ele¬ 
ments of Embryology, a valuable contri¬ 
bution to the literature of biology. He 
was elected a fellow of his college, fellow 
and member of council of the Royal 
Society, and in 1881 professor of animal 
morphology at Cambridge. The promise 
of his chief work, Comparative Embry¬ 
ology (1880-81) was unfulfilled, as in the 
latter year he was killed by a fall on 
Mont Blanc. 

Balfour SlR James, a Scottish lawyer 
x>diiu in, an( j public character of the 

sixteenth century, was a native of Fife¬ 
shire. In youth, for his share in the con¬ 
spiracy against Cardinal Beaton, he was 
condemned with Knox to the galleys ; but 
after his escape in 1550 he found it to 
his interest to change his opinions, and 
later he was appointed, through the 
favor of Queen Mary, Lord of Session, 
and member of the privy-council. In 
1567 he was appointed governor of Edin¬ 
burgh Castle, but had no scruple in sur¬ 
rendering it to Murray, who made him 
president of the Court of Session. In 
1570 he was charged with a share in the 
murder of Darnley, but got off by bribery. 
He was afterwards instrumental in com¬ 


passing the death of Regent Morton by 
the production of a deed signed by him 
and bearing on the Darnley murder. His 
own death took place shortly after in 
1583. The Practicks of Scots Law, attrib¬ 
uted to him, continued to be used and 
consulted in manuscript for nearly a cen¬ 
tury until it was supplanted by the Insti¬ 
tutes of Lord Stair. 

Balfour John Hutton, a distinguished 
Jjclliuui, botanist, born 1808, died 1884. 


He graduated at Edinburgh University in 
arts and in medicine; in 1841-45 was 
professor of botany in Glasgow Univer¬ 
sity ; and in the latter year removed to 
Edinburgh to occupy a similar post, re¬ 
signing his chair in 1879. He wrote 
valuable botanical text-books, including 
Elements , Outlines, Manual, and Class- 
book, besides various other works. 

Balfronoh (bal-frush), or Barfurush', 
Jjclii i uubii a town of Persia) province 

of Mazanderan, about twelve miles from 
the Caspian, a great emporium of the 
trade between Persia and Russia. Pop. 
estimated 50,000. 



Bali 


Balkh 


Ball (ba'le), an island of the Indian 

a Archipelago east of Java, be¬ 

longing to Holland ; greatest length, 85, 
greatest breadth, 55 miles; area, about 
2260 square miles; pop. about 700,000. 
It consists chiefly of a series of volcanic 
mountains, of which the loftiest, Agoong 
(11,326 feet), became active in 1843 
after a long period of quiescence. Prin¬ 
cipal products, rice, cocoa, coffee, indigo, 
cotton, etc. The people are akin to those 
of Java and are mainly Brahmans in 
religion. It is divided into eight prov¬ 
inces under native rajahs, and forms one 
colony with Lombok. 

"Ralinl or Balliol (ba'li-ol or bal'li-ol), 
cuui, j 0HN . DE> 0 f Barnard Castle, 

Northumberland, father of King John 
Baliol, a great English (or Norman) 
baron in the reign of Henry III, to whose 
cause he strongly attached himself in his 
struggles with the barons. In 1263 he 
laid the foundation of Balliol College, 
Oxford, w r hicli was completed by his 
widow Devorguilla or Devorgilla. She 
was daughter and co-heiress of Allan of 
Galloway, a great baron of Scotland, by 
Margaret, eldest daughter of David, Earl 
of Huntingdon, brother of William the 
Lion. It was on the strength of this 
genealogy that his son John Baliol be¬ 
came temporary King of Scotland. He 
died 1269. 

"Rfl 1 'inl or Balliol, John, King of Scot- 
a u ’ land; born about 1249, died 1315. 
On the death of Margaret, the Maiden of 
Norway and grandchild of Alexander 
III, Baliol claimed the vacant throne 
by virtue of his descent from David, Earl 
of Huntingdon, brother to William the 
Lion, King of Scotland (see above art). 
Robert Bruce (grandfather of the king) 
opposed Baliol; but Edward I’s decision 
was in favor of Baliol, who did homage 
to him for the kingdom. Nov. 20, 1292. 
Irritated by Edward’s harsh exercise of 
authority, Baliol concluded a treaty with 
France, then at war with England ; but 
after the defeat at Dunbar he surrendered 
his crown into the hands of the English 
monarch. He was sent with his son to 
the Tower, but, by the intercession of 
the pope in 1297, obtained liberty to 
retire to his Norman estates, where he 
died.—His son, Edward, in 1332 landed 
in Fife with an armed force, and having 
defeated a large army under the regent 
Mar (who was killed I, got himself 
crowned king, but was driven out in 
three months. 

Balista or Ballista (bal-lis'ta), a ma- 
’ chine used in military opera¬ 
tions by the ancients for hurling heavy 
missiles, thus serving in some degree the 
purpose of the modern cannon. The 


motive power appears to have been ob¬ 
tained by the torsion of ropes, fibers, cat¬ 
gut, or hair. They are said to have some¬ 
times had an effective range of a quarter 
of a mile, and to have thrown stones 
weighing as much as 300 lbs. The balistae 
differed from the catapulted, in that the 
latter were used for throwing darts. 

Balis'tidae. See Trigger-fishes. 
Balize (ba-lez'). See Belize. 

Bal'kan ( anc - Hcemus), a rugged chain 
of mountains extending from 
Cape Emineh, on the Black Sea, in East¬ 
ern Roumelia, westwards to the borders 
of Servia, though the name is sometimes 
used to include the whole mountain sys¬ 
tem from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, 
the region south of Austria and Russia, 
or south of the Danube and Save, forming 
the Balkan Peninsula. The range, which 
is over 200 miles in length, forms the 
wmter-shed between the streams flowing 
northward into the Danube and those 
flowing southward to the ^Egean, the 
chief of the latter being the Maritza. 
The average height is not more than 5000 
ft., but the highest point, Tchat-al-dagh, 
is 8340 ft. As a political boundary it 
divides Bulgaria from Eastern Roumelia. 
It is considered the natural bulwark of 
Turkey against enemies on its European 
frontiers. Yet in the Russo-Turkish war 
of 1877-78 the Russian troops managed 
to cross it without great difficulty, though 
they had to encounter a stubborn resist¬ 
ance at the Shipka Pass. w r here a Turkish 
army of 32,000 men ultimately surren¬ 
dered to them. 

Balkan Free States, 

and Montenegro. 

or Balkhash (bal-?iash'), a 
jjaijvaoii , ga ] t lake j[ n R USS i an Central 

Asia, surrounded by steppes and nlains; 
length about 330 miles, area 8500 sq. 
miles, depth nowhere more than 80 feet; 
formerly of much greater area and gradu¬ 
ally growing smaller; receives the Ili and 
other smaller streams. 

■DnlLL (balk or bal7i), a city in the north 
1 of Afghanistan, in Afghan Turk¬ 
estan, at one time the emporium of the 
trade between India, China, and Western 
Asia. It was long the center of Zoroas¬ 
trianism and was also an important Bud¬ 
dhist center. In 1220 it was sacked by 
Genghis Khan, and again by Timur in 
the fourteenth century. The remains of 
the ancient city extend for miles. The 
town is now merely a village, but a new 
town has risen up an hour’s journey 
north of the old, the residence of the Af¬ 
ghan governor, with a population of about 



Balkis 


Ballad 


10,000 to 15,000. Silk weaving is an 
active industry. The district, which 
formed a portion of ancient Bactria, lies 
between the Oxus and the Hindu Kush, 
with Badakshan to the east and the 
desert to the west. In the vicinity of 
the Oxus, where there are facilities for 
irrigation, the soil is rich and productive, 
and there are many populous villages. 
"RqI'IHq Arabian name of the Queen 
K.1&, of g heba W h 0 visited Solomon. 
She is the central figure of innumerable 
Eastern legends and tales. 

•Dali Game of. Ball-playing was prac- 
■ ua > tised by the ancients, and old and 
young amused themselves with it. The 
Phaeacian damsels are represented in the 
Odyssey as playing it to the sound of 
music; and Horace represents Maecenas 
as amusing himself thus in a journey. 
In the Greek gymnasia, the Roman baths, 
and in many Roman villas a sphceriste- 
rium (a place appropriated for playing 
ball) was to be found, the games played 
being similar to those indulged at the pres¬ 
ent day. In the middle ages the snort 
continued very popular both as an indoor 
and outdoor exercise, and was a favorite 
court pastime until about the end of the 
eighteenth century. In England football 
and tennis are mentioned at an early date, 
and a favorite game prior to the English 
revolution was one in which a mall or 
mallet was used, hence the name pall-mall 
(It. palla, L. pila, a ball) for the game 
and the place where it was played. The 
most popular modern forms are base¬ 
ball, football, cricket, golf, lawn tennis, 
polo, racquet, lacrosse, and basket ball. 
"Rail (ball), John, an itinerant preacher 
an f our teenth century, excom¬ 

municated about 1307 for promulgating 
‘ errors, schisms, and scandals against the 
pope, archbishops, bishops, and clergy.’ 
He was one of the most active promoters 
of the popular insurgent spirit which 
found vent under Wat Tyler in 1381, and 
the couplet, 

‘When Adam delved and Eve span, 

Who was then the gentleman ? ’ 

is attributed to him. 

■Roll Sir Robert S., an astronomer. 

1 born at Dublin in 1840. graduated 
at Trinity College in 1861. His studies 
in astronomy made him professor of that 
science in Trinity and royal astronomer 
for Ireland in 1874, and professor of 
astronomy and geometry at Cambridge in 
1892. He was knighted in 1886. He 
wrote Experimental Physics, Theory of 
Screws, and works on astronomy, me¬ 
chanics, etc. 

*Rp 1 '1 a rl a term loosely applied to various 
■°ai Aau > poetic forms of the song type 


but in its most definite sense a poem in 
which a short narrative is subjected to 
simple lyrical treatment. It was, as in¬ 
dicated by its name, which is related to 
the Italian ballare and O. French bailer, 
to dance, originally a song accompanied 
by a dance. The ballad is probably one 
of the earliest forms of rhythmical poetic 
expression, constituting a species of epic 
in miniature, out of which by fusion and 
remolding larger epics were sometimes 
shaped. As in the folk-tales, so in the 
ballads of different nations, the resem¬ 
blances are sufficiently numerous and 
close to point to the conclusion that they 
have often had their first origin in the 
same primitive folk-lore or popular tales. 
But in any case, excepting a few modern 
literary ballads of a subtler kind, they 
have been the popular expression of the 
broad human emotions clustering about 
some strongly outlined incidents of war, 
love, crime, superstition, or death. It is 
next to certain that in the Homeric poems 
fragments of older ballads are embedded; 
but the earliest ballads, properly so called, 
of which we have record were the ballis- 
tea, or dance-songs of the Romans, of 
the kind sung in honor of the deeds of 
Aurelian in the Sarmatic war by a chorus 
of dancing boys. In their less specialized 
sense of lyric narratives, their early 
popularity among the Teutonic race is 
evidenced by the testimony of Tacitus, of 
the Gothic historian Jornandes, and the 
Lombard historian Paulus Diaconus; and 
many appear to have been written down 
by order of Charlemagne and used as a 
means of education. Of the ballads of 
this period, however, only a general con¬ 
ception can be formed from their traces 
in conglomerates like the Nibelungenlied; 
the more artificial productions of the 
Minnesanger and Meistersanger overlying 
the more popular ballad until the fifteenth 
century, when it sprang once more into 
vigorous life. A third German ballad 
period was initiated by Burger under the 
inspiration of the revived interest in the 
subject shown in Great Britain and the 
publication of the Percy Reliques; and 
the movement was sustained by Herder, 
Schiller, Goethe, Heine, Uhland, and 
others. The earlier German work is, 
however, of inferior value to that of 
Scandinavia, where, though compara¬ 
tively few manuscripts have survived, 
and those not more than three or four 
centuries old, a more perfect oral tradi¬ 
tion has rendered it possible to trace the 
original stock of the twelfth century. 

Of the English and Scottish ballads 
anterior to the thirteenth century there 
are few traces beyond the indication that 
they were abundant, if indeed anything 
can be definitely asserted of them earlier 



Ballad 


Ballarat 


than the fourteenth century. Among 
the oldest may be placed The Little 
Gest of Robin Hood, Hugh of Lin¬ 
coln, Sir Patrick Spens, and the Battle 
of Otterbourn. In the fifteenth century 
specimens multiply rapidly: ballad¬ 
making became in the reign of Henry 
VIII a fashionable amusement, the king 
himself setting the example; and though 
in the reign of Elizabeth ballads came 
into literary disrepute and ballad singers 
were brought under the law, yet there 
was no apparent check upon the rate of 
their production. Except perhaps in the 
north of England and south of Scotland, 
there was, however, a marked and in¬ 
creasing tendency to vulgarization as dis¬ 
tinct from the preservation of popular 
qualities. The value of the better ballads 
was lost sight of in the flood of dull, 
rhythmless, and frequently scurrilous 
verse. The modern revival in Britain 
dates from the publication of Ramsay’s 
Evergreen and Tea-table Miscellany 
(1724-271 and of the selection made by 
Bishop Percy from his seventeenth- 
century MSS. (1765), a revival not 
more important for its historical interest 
than for the influence which it has exer¬ 
cised upon all subsequent poetry. 

The threefold wave discernible in- Ger¬ 
man, if not in British, ballad history, is 
equally to be traced in Spain, which alone 
among the Latinized countries of Europe 
has songs of equal age and merit with the 
British historic ballads. The principal 
difference between them is, that for the 
most part the Spanish romance is in tro¬ 
chaic, the British ballad in iambic metre. 
The ballads of the Cid date from about 
the end of the twelfth and beginning of 
the thirteenth century; and then followed 
an interval of more elaborate production, 
a revival of ballad interest in the six¬ 
teenth century, a new declension, and 
finally a modern and still persisting en¬ 
thusiasm. 

The French poetry of this kind never 
reached any high degree of perfection, the 
romance, farce, and lyric flourishing at 
the expense of the ballad proper. Of 
Italy much the same may be said, though 
Sicily has supplied a great store of bal¬ 
lads ; and nearly all the Portuguese 
poetry of this kind is to be traced to a 
Spanish origin. The Russians have 
lyrico-epic poems, of which some, in old 
Russian, are excellent, and the Servians 
are still in the ballad-producing stage of 
civilization. Modern Greece has also its 
store of ballads to which Madame Chenier 
called attention in the middle of last 
century. Both in Greece and Russia and 
in the Pyrenees the old habit of improvis¬ 


ing song as an accompaniment to dance 
still exists. 

■Rail a dp (bal-ad'), the earlier and modern 
** French spelling of ballad, but 

now limited in its use to a distinct verse- 
form introduced into English literature 
of late years from the French and chiefly 
used by writers of vers-de-soci£t£. It con¬ 
sists of three stanzas of eight lines each, 
with an envoy or closing stanza of four 
lines. The rhymes, which are not more 
than three, follow each other in the stan¬ 
zas thus; a. b, a, b; b, c, b. c, and in the 
envoy, b, c, b. c; and the same line 
serves as a refrain to each of the stanzas 
and to the envoy. There are other va¬ 
rieties, but this may be regarded as tbf» 
strictest, according to the precedent of 
Villon and Marot. 

IlollcmtTTTiP (barian-tin), James, the 

isanamyne priTlter of sir w Scott - s 

works, born at Kelso 1772, died at Edin¬ 
burgh 1S33. Successively a solicitor and 
a printer in his native town, at Scott’s 
suggestion he removed to Edinburgh, 
where the high perfection to which he 
had brought the art of printing, and his 
connection with Scott, secured him a 
large trade. The printing firm of James 
Rallantyne & Co. included Scott, James 
Ballantyne and his brother John (who 
died in 1821). For many years he con¬ 
ducted the Edinburgh Weekly Journal. 
His firm was involved in the bankruptcy 
of Constable & Co., by which Scott’s for¬ 
tunes were wrecked, but Ballantyne was 
continued by the creditors’ trustee in the 
literary management of the printing- 
house. He survived Scott only about 
four months. 

"Rail a rat (bal-la-rat'), or Ballaarat, 
-uaiiaiat an Augtralian town in victo¬ 


ria. chief center of the gold-mining in¬ 
dustry of the colony, and next in impor¬ 
tance to Melbourne, from which it is 
distant w. n. w. about sixty miles direct. 
It consists of two distinct municipalities, 
Ballarat West and Ballarat East, sepa¬ 
rated by the Varrowee Creek, and has 
many handsome buildings, and all the 
institutions of a progressive and flour¬ 
ishing city, including hospital, mechanics’ 
institute and library, free public library, 
Anglican and R. C. cathedrals, etc. 
Gold was first discovered in 1851, and 
the extraordinary richness of the field 
soon attracted hosts of miners. The sur¬ 
face diggings having been exhausted, the 
precious metal is now got from greater 
depths, and there are mines as deep as 
some coal-pits, the gold being obtained 
by crushing the auriferous quartz. The 
mines give employment to over 6000 men. 
There are also foundries, woolen mills, 



Ballast 


Ballinger 


flour-mills, breweries and distilleries, etc. 
Population 43,701. 

Ballast (bal'ast), signifies (1) heavy 
matter, as stone, sand, iron, or 
water placed in the bottom of a ship or 
other vessel to sink it in the water to 
such a depth as to enable it to carry 
sufficient sail without oversetting. (2) 
The sand placed in bags in the car of a 
balloon to steady it and to enable the 
aeronaut to lighten the balloon by throw¬ 
ing part of it out. (3) The material 
used to fill up the space between the rails 
on a railway in order to make it firm and 
solid. 

fipn vi n o* an axle bearing in which 
-ucdiing, the shaft is supported, 

not on a cylindrical surface, but on a 
number of small, hard steel balls, which 
turn freely as the shaft revolves and 
greatly reduce the friction. This bearing, 
first largely used on the bicycle, has been 




Ball Bearing. 

extended to wagon wheels and other axle 
movements, in which the element of fric¬ 
tion is largely eliminated. Its range of 
application to machinery of all kinds is 
almost unlimited. 

"Roll nnet a kind of self-acting stop- 
■Ddli-LULJY, cock opened and shut by 

means of a hollow sphere or ball of 



Fig. 1, Cistern with Ball-cock attached. 

Fig. 2, Internal structure of Cock, 
a, Valve shown open so as to admit water. 6, 
Arm of the lever, which being raised shuts the 
valve. 


metal attached to the end of a lever con¬ 
nected with the cock. Such cocks are 
often employed to regulate the supply of 
water to cisterns. The ball floats on the 
water in the cistern by its buoyancy, and 
rises and sinks as the water rises and 
sinks, shutting off the water in the one 
case and letting it on in the other. 
Ballet ( ba * a )> a species of dance, usually 
u forming an interlude in theatrical 
performances, but principally confined to 
opera. Its object is to represent, by 
mimic movements and dances, actions, 
characters, sentiments, passions, and 
feelings, in which several dancers per¬ 
form together. The ballet is an invention 
of modern times, though pantomimic 
dances were not unknown to the ancients. 
The dances frequently introduced into 
operas seldom deserve the name ballet, 
as they usually do not represent any ac¬ 
tion, but are destined only to give the 
dancers an opportunity of showing their 
skill, and the modern ballet in general, 
from an artistic point of view, is a very 
low-class entertainment. 

Poll Amirov an architectural ornament 

J5aA1 nower, resembling a ba]1 placed 

in a circular flower, the _ 

three petals of which 
form a cup round it; 
usually inserted in a 
hollow molding, and gen¬ 
erally characteristic of 
the Decorated Gothic style 
of the fourteenth century. 

Ballia ( balli-a )> a town of India, in the 
Northwestern Provinces, on the 
Ganges, the administrative headquarters 
of a district of same name. Pop. 15,320. 
Ball in a (bal-e-na/), a town and river- 
a port, Ireland, County Mayo, 
on both banks of the Moy, about 5 miles 
above its mouth in Killala Bay, with a 
considerable local and also a little coast¬ 
ing and foreign trade. Pop. 4800. 

Bflllinaslop (ballin-a-sld'),a town,Ire- 
jDdiimdbiue land in Galway and Ros _ 

common Counties, 15 miles southwest of 
Athlone, on both sides of the Suck, noted 
for its cattle fair, from 5th till 9th Oc¬ 
tober, the most important in Ireland. 
Pop. 4904. 



■a* 


'Rallinp’pr (bal'in-jer), Richard Achil- 

.ucnxiiigci LEg ^ lawyeiN born at Boones _ 

boro, Iowa, in 1855; graduated at Will¬ 
iams College in 1884; studied law and 
practiced in Washington State; became 
judge of the superior court; was mayor of 
Seattle 1904-06; commissioner of General 
Land Office after March 4, 1877; ap¬ 
pointed Secretary of the Interior by 
President Taft in 1909. As such he was 
accused of favoring speculators seeking 
to grasp the coal deposits of Alaska and 























Balliol College 


Balm of Gilead 


a congressional committee was appointed 
to investigate the charges. The com¬ 
mittee reported in his favor, but he re¬ 
signed on March 7, 1911. 

■Ral'l-ml fnllpcrp Oxford, was founded 

±sai iioi college, about 1363 by John 

Balliol (or Baliol) of Barnard Castle, 
Durham, and Devorgilla, his wife (pa¬ 
rents of John Balliol, King of Scotland). 
There are a large number of valuable 
scholarships and exhibitions, including 
the Snell exhibitions, fourteen in number, 
held by students from Glasgow Univer¬ 
sity. 

Ballista (bal-lis'ta). See Balista. 

Ballistic Pendulum, “ gSSS 

ing the velocity of military projectiles, 
and consequently the force of fired gun¬ 
powder. A piece of ordnance is fired 
against bags of sand supported in a 
strong case or frame suspended so as to 
swing like a pendulum. The arc through 
which it vibrates is shown by an index, 
and the amount of vibration forms a 
measure of the force or velocity of the 
ball. 

.Yin 77 lp a new form of nozzle for 
> fire hose, sprinkling hose, 
etc., in which the hose ends in a cup¬ 
shaped nozzle carrying a ball which 
nearly fills the cavity. This rests loosely 
in the cup, its effect being to break up 
the stream of water into a circular sheet 
of spray, of wide distribution. First 
coming into notice about 1895, this prin¬ 
ciple has since been wddely applied. 

Balloon (bal-lon'). See Aeronautics. 

"Rallnnyi-ficiTi (Tetraodon Uneat us). 
■DAllUUii iibll 0 r d e r pjectognathi, a 

curious tropical fish that can inflate itself 
so as to resemble a ball. 

"Rfll'lnt Voting by, signifies literally 
’ voting by means of little balls 
(called by the French ballotes), usually 
of different colors, which are put into a 
box in such a manner as to enable the 
voter, if he chooses, to conceal for whom 
or for what he gives his suffrage. The 
method is adopted by most clubs in the 
election of their members—a white ball 
indicating assent, a black ball dissent. 
Hence. w T hen an applicant is rejected, he 
is said to be blackballed. The term 
voting by ballot is also applied in a gen¬ 
eral way to any method of secret voting, 
as, for instance, when a person gives his 
vote by means of a ticket bearing the 
name of the candidate whom he wishes to 
support. In this sense vote by ballot is 
the mode adopted in electing the mem¬ 
bers of legislative assemblies in most 
countries, as well as the members of 


various other bodies. In ancient Greece 
and Rome the ballot was in common use. 
In Britain it had long been advocated in 
the election of members of Parliament 
and of municipal corporations, and was 
finally introduced by an act passed in 
1872. 

In the United States the ballot was in 
use in early colonial times, and was made 
compulsory in the constitutions of New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and all other states. 
The Australian ballot system, originated 
about 1870 in the British colonies, has 
recently been adopted by law in three- 
fourths of the United States, but with 
certain variations, which diminish its 
value as a simple and equitable system 
of voting. By a carefully contrived 
system of arranging the names on the 
ballet, secluding each voter at the polls, 
and marking and folding the ballots, it 
claims to secure greater secrecy and 
honesty than any other method of 
voting. 

TJallvmpnn (bal-li-me'na), a town of 
■Ddliyiueild, Ireland? County Antrim, 

22 miles from Belfast, with a consider¬ 
able trade in linens and linen yarns, the 
manufacture of which is carried on to a 
great extent. Pop. (1901) 10,886. 
"Rallvmnnpv (bal-li-moni), a town of 
■Danymoney Ireland< County Antrim, 

38 miles N. w. of Belfast; has manu¬ 
factures of linen, chemicals, tanning, and 
brewing. Pop. 3049. 

Ballyshan'non, * £ TrlLl . 6 County 
Donegal. Pop. 2400. 

TJnllnn (bal-lo'), an American contro- 

aiiuu born i n New Hamp¬ 

shire in 1771. Settling at Boston in 
1817, he published several theological 
w r orks, in which he argued in favor of 
Universal Salvation, and subsequently 
issued the Universalist Magazine, followed 
by the TJniversalist Expositor, now 
known as the Universalist Quarterly 
Review. He is looked upon as the 
founder of modern universalism. Died in 
1852. 


Balmaceda J °® t 

Manuel, Chilean states¬ 
man, born 1840; early distinguished as a 
political orator; advocated in Congress 
separation of church and state; as 
premier, in 1884. introduced civil mar¬ 
riage ; elected president in 1886. A con¬ 
flict with the Congressional party, pro¬ 
voked by his alleged cruelties and official 
dishonesty, and advocacy of the claim of 
Signor Vicuna as his legally elected suc¬ 
cessor, resulted in Balmaceda’s overthrow 
and suicide, 1891. 

Balm of Gilead, exudation of a 
’ tree, Balsamoden- 



Balnaves 


Baltic Sea 


dron Gileadense , nat. order Amyridacese, 
a native of Arabia Felix, and also ob¬ 
tained from the closely allied species Bal- 
samodendron opobalsdmum. The leaves 
of the former tree yield when bruised a 
strong aromatic scent; and the balm of 
Gilead of the shops, or balsam of Mecca 



Balm of Gile&d—Balsamodendron Gileadense. 


or of Syria, is obtained from it by making 
an incision in its trunk. It has a yellow¬ 
ish or greenish color, a warm, bitterish, 
aromatic taste, and an acidulous, fragrant 
smell. It is valued as an odoriferous un¬ 
guent and cosmetic. 

"RainavA* (bal-nav'es), Henry, of Hal- 
Ddiiictvca hm , a Scottish reformer, was 

born at Kirkcaldy, educated at St. An¬ 
drews, and became a Lord of Session and 
a member of the Scottish Parliament in 
1538. and secretary of state in 1543. 
He was one of the commissioners ap¬ 
pointed in 1543 to treat of the proposed 
marriage between Edward VI and Mary. 
In 1547 he was one of the prisoners taken 
in the castle of St. Andrews and exiled 
to France where he wrote his Confes¬ 
sion of Faith. Recalled in 1554, he 
busily engaged in the establishment of the 
reformed faith and assisted in revising 
the Book of Discipline. He died in 1579. 

Balrampur ( r b ff “' pur) - See BwU 

-Doloo (bal'sa), a kind of raft or float 
x>cuad U g ed on the coast an d rivers of 



Balsa of Inflated Skins. 


Peru and other parts of South America 
for fishing, for landing goods and pas¬ 
sengers through a heavy surf, and for 
other purposes where buoyancy is chiefly 
wanted. It is in common use on Lake 
Titicaca, where it is made of rushes 
bound firmly together. 

Balsam the common name 

of succulent plants of the 
genus Impatiens, family Balsaminacese, 
having beautiful, irregular flowers, culti¬ 
vated in gardens and greenhouses. Im¬ 
patiens balsamina, a native of the East 
Indies, is a common cultivated species. 
The Balsaminacese are distinguished by 
their many-seeded fruit. See Impatiens. 
Balsam an aroma ti c > resinous sub- 
’ stance, flowing spontaneously 
or by incision from certain plants. A 
great variety of substances pass under 
this name. But in chemistry the term is 
confined to such vegetable juices as consist 
of resins mixed with volatile oils, and 
yield the volatile oil on distillation. The 
resins are produced from the oils by 
oxidation. A balsam is thus intermediate 
between a volatile oil and a resin. It is 
soluble in alcohol and ether, and capable 
of yielding benzoic acid. The balsams 
are either liquid or more or less solid ; as, 
for example, the balm of Gilead, and the 
balsams of copaiba, Peru, and Tolu. 
Benzoin, dragon’s-blood, and storax are 
not true balsams, though sometimes called 
so. The balsams are used in perfumery, 
medicine, and the arts. See Copaiba , 
etc. Balsam of Gilead or of Mecca , balm 
of Gilead (which see). Canada balsam. 
See the art. Canada Balsam. 

Balsam Fir, * he ^ al , m of , fir - 

7 See Balm of Gilead. 

Balsa'mo, See Gaaliostro ' 

Balsamodendron a " n u ; 

of trees or bushes, order Amyridacese, 
species of which yield such balsamic or 
resinous substances as balm of Gilead, 
bdellium, myrrh, etc. 

'Ral+a (bal'ta), a Russian town, gov. of 
" Dci Podolia, on the Kodema, an af¬ 
fluent of the Bug, 115 miles N. N. w. of 
Odessa. Pop. 24,400. 

Baltic ( bal'd k) Provinces, a term 
commonly given to the Russian 
governments of Courland, Livonia, and 
Esthonia. , 

T3«H-in Qa a an inland sea or large gulf 

.Baltic oea, connected W ith the North 

Sea, washing the coasts of Denmark, 
Germany, Russia, and Sweden ; over 900 
miles long, extending to 200 broad: su¬ 
perficial extent, together with the Gulfs 
of Bothnia and Finland, 171,743 sq. 
miles. Its greatest depth is 126 fathoms; 




Baltimore 


Baltimore 


mean, 44 fathoms. A chain of islands 
separates the southern part from the 
northern, or Gulf of Bothnia. In the 
northeast the Gulf of Finland stretches 
far into Russia, and separates Finland 
from Esthonia : the Gulf of Riga washes 
the shores of the three Russian govern¬ 
ments of Courland, Livonia, and Es¬ 
thonia ; while the Gulf of Danzig is an 
inlet on the Prussian coast. The water 
of the Baltic is colder and clearer than 
that of the ocean; it contains a smaller 
proportion of salt, and the ice obstructs 
the navigation three or four months in 
the year. Among the rivers that enter it 
are the Neva, Dwina, Oder, Vistula and 
Niemen. Islands: Samsoe, Moen, Born¬ 
holm, Langeland, Laaland, which belong 
to Denmark (besides Zealand and 
Funen) ; Gottland and Oeland, belonging 
to Sweden ; Riigen, belonging to Prussia ; 
the Aland Islands, Dagoe, and Oesel, 
belonging to Russia. The Sound, the 
Great and the Little Belt lead from the 
Kattegat into the Baltic. The Baltic and 
North Sea are connected by means of the 
Eider and a canal from it to the neigh¬ 
borhood of Kiel, and by the Kaiser 
Wilhelm canal, 61 miles long, completed 
in 1895, large enough to permit the pas¬ 
sage of men-of-war. 

Bflltimnrp (bal'ti-mor), a city and port 
iicuumuic in Maryland) finely S i tua ted 

on the N. side of the Patapsco, 14 miles 
above Chesapeake Bay, 40 miles n. e. of 
Washington, and 96 miles s. w. of Phila¬ 
delphia. Baltimore takes its name from 
Lord Baltimore, the founder of Mary¬ 
land ; it was first laid out as a town in 
1729; and was incorporated as a city in 
1797. It is well built, chiefly of brick, 
and is known as the ‘ monumental city,’ 
from the many public monuments 
which adorn it, the principal being the 
Washington monument. Among its 
notable buildings are the City Hall, built 
in Renaissance style, of white marble, 
with a tower and dome rising 260 feet; 
the Peabody Institute, containing a 
library, art gallery, etc.; the Maryland 
Institute; the Johns Hopkins Hosnital; 
the Roman Catholic cathedral; the Enoch 
Pratt Free Library, with 200,000 vol¬ 
umes, and various municipal buildings. 
It has numerous educational institutions, 
chief among which, and now one of the 
most important in the United States, is 
the Johns Hopkins University, endowed 
with $3,500,000 by its founder (whose 
name it bears). In its excellence 
of system and perfection of equip¬ 
ment it vies with the best European in¬ 
stitutions of its kind. The University of 
Maryland embraces one of the oldest 
medical schools in the United States, 


established in 1812. Druid Hill Park, 
on the outer limits of the city, covers 
about 700 acres and is noted for its 
natural beauty. Baltimore vies with 
Philadelphia as being a city of homes, 
each family, as a rule, having a house of 
its own. The leading industries are the 
canning of fruits and oysters and the 
manufacture of clothing, boots and 
shoes, cotton goods, machinery, etc. The 
canning industry is very large, the cot- 
ton-duck mills employ 6000 hands, and 



there is an extensive Bessemer steel 
plant. Shipbuilding is also of impor¬ 
tance. As a flour market Baltimore is an 
important center; and it does an im¬ 
mense trade in exporting tobacco and 
other products. The harbor is very ex¬ 
tensive, and has lately been much im¬ 
proved, and several railroad lines reach 
the city, adding greatly to its commer* 
cil advantages. Pop. 558,485. 












Baltimore 


Baluze 


"Raltirnnrp George Calvert, Lord, 
•DdlLiniUie, born in Yorkshire about 

1580; died in London, 1632. He was for 
some time secretary of state to James I, 
but this post he resigned in 1624 in con¬ 
sequence of having become a Roman 
Catholic. Notwithstanding this he re¬ 
tained the confidence of the king, w y ho in 
1625 raised him to the Irish peerage, his 
title being from Baltimore, a fishing vil¬ 
lage of Cork. He had previously ob¬ 
tained a grant of land in Newfoundland, 
but as this colony was much exposed to 
the attacks of the French he left it, and 
obtained another patent for Maryland. 
He died before the charter was completed, 
and it was granted to his son Cecil, who 
deputed the governorship to his brother 
Leonard (1606-47). 

"RflltlTTIftTP Orinlp (o'ri-ol), an Amer- 

-Dammore urioie iean bird< the lc _ 

terns Baltimorii, family Icteridae, nearly 
allied to the Sturnidae, or starlings. It 
is a migratory bird, and is known also 
by the names of ‘ golden robin,’ * hang- 
bird,’ and ‘ fire-bird.’ It is about 7 inches 
long; the head and upper parts are black 
the under parts of a brilliant orange hue 
It builds a pouch-like nest, very skill 
fully constructed of threads deftly inter¬ 
woven, suspended from a forked branch 
and shaded by overhanging leaves. It 
feeds on insects, caterpillars, beetles, etc. 
Its song is a clear, mellow whistle. 
"Ralnrlrktan (ba-ld'chi-stan), a country 

.oaiucnistan in Asia? the coast of which 

is continuous with the northwestern 
seaboard of India, bounded on the north 
by Afghanistan, on the west by Persia, 
on the south by the Arabian Sea, and on 
the east by Sind. It has an area of 
132,000 sq. miles, and a population esti¬ 
mated at about 1,000,000; of the districts 
under British administration, 300,000: 
The whole country, though portions of it 
are independent, is officially included 
in the Empire of India. The general 
surface of the country is rugged and 
mountainous, with some extensive inter¬ 
vals of barren sandy deserts, and there 
is a general deficiency of water. The 
country is almost entirely occupied by 
pastoral tribes under semi-independent 
sirdars or chiefs. The inhabitants are 
divided into two great branches, the 
Baluchis and Brahuis, differing in their 
language, figure, and manners. The 
Baluchi language resembles the modern 
Persian, the Brahui presents many points 
of agreement with the Dravidian lan¬ 
guages of India. The Baluchis in general 
have tall figures, long visages, and prom¬ 
inent features; the Brahuis, on the con¬ 
trary, have short, thick bones, with round 
faces and flat lineaments, with hair and 
24—1 


beards frequently brown. Both races 
are zealous Mohammedans, hospitable, 
brave, and capable of enduring much 
fatigue. The Khan of Khelat is nominal 
ruler of the whole land, and in 1877 
concluded a treaty with Britain, in virtue 



■ 

''mmm 

Baluchis on the Lookout. 

of which he became a feudatory of the 
British monarch. The right had already 
been secured of occupying at pleasure 
the mountain passes between Khelat and 
Afghanistan; but the new treaty placed 
the whole country at the disposal of the 
British government for all military and 
strategical purposes. 

■Ralnsitpr (bal'us-ter), a small column or 
Ddiuai/C pilaster of various forms and 

dimensions, often adorned with mold¬ 
ings, used for balustrades. 

■Ra lustra dp (bal-us-tradO, a range of 
■DdiUbhldue balusters together with 

the cornice or coping which they support, 
used as a parapet for bridges or the 
roofs of buildings, or as a mere termina¬ 
tion to a structure; also serving as a 
fence or enclosure for altars, balconies, 
terraces, staircases, etc. 

Baluze ETIENNE, French his- 

ai torian and miscellaneous writer, 
born in 1630 ; died in 1718. For more than 
thirty years he was librarian to M. de 
Colbert and was appointed professor of 





Balzac 


Bamboo 


canon law in the royal college, but dis¬ 
pleasing Louis XIV. with his Histoire 
generate de la maison d'Auvergne, he 
was thrown into prison .and his property 
confiscated. He recovered his liberty 
in 1713, but did not regain his position. 
He left some 1500 MSS. in the national 
library of Paris, besides forty-five printed 
works, including Regum Francorum 
Capitularia, 2 vols., and Miscellanea , 7 
vols. 

Balzac (bal-zak), Honore de, a cele- 
uaL cuy ^ ra ^ e( j French novelist, was born 
at Tours in 1709; died in 1850. Before 
completing his twenty-fourth year he had 
published a number of novels under 
various noms de plume, but the success 
attending all was very indifferent; and 
it was not till 1829, by the publication 
of Le Dernier Chouan, a tale of La 
Vendee, and the first novel to which 
Balzac appended his name, that the at¬ 
tention of the public w T as diverted to 
the extraordinary genius of the author. 
A still greater popularity attended his 
Physiologie de Mariage, a work full of 
piquant and caustic observations on hu¬ 
man nature. He wrote a large number 
of novels, all marked by a singular knowl¬ 
edge of human nature and distinct de¬ 
lineation of character, but apt to be 
marred by exaggeration. Among his 
best-known works are: Scenes de la Vie 
de Province; Scenes de la Vie Parisienne ; 
Le Pdre Goriot; Eugenie Grandet; and 
Le Medecin de Campagne (‘The Coun¬ 
try Doctor’). The publication of this 
last, 1835, led to a correspondence be¬ 
tween Balzac and the Countess Eveline 
de Hanska (the ‘Polish Lady’ to whom 
he dedicated Modeste Mignon, 1844), 
and whom he married fifteen years later. 
Balzac jEAN Louis Guez, de, Sei- 
9 gneur, French writer, born at 
Angoul@me in 1597: died in 1654. He 
was admitted into the Academy in 1634. 
He was a powerful rhetorician and a 
terse writer of prose. His Letters , 
Prince, Socrate Chretien, Entretiens and 
Aristippe are the best known of his 
works. 

Bamba (bam'ba), a district of the Con¬ 
go, w. coast of Africa, lying to 
the south of the river Ambriz. It is 
thickly populated, and is rich in gold, 
silver, copper, salt, etc. 


Bambflrrp (bam-bar'ra), a former negro 
kingdom of Central Africa, 
now part of the French Sudan, on the 
Joliba or Upper Niger, first visited by 
Mungo Park. The country is generally 
very fertile, producing wheat, rice, maize, 
yams, etc. The inhabitants belong to the 
Mandingo race, and are partly Moham¬ 
medans. Excellent cotton cloth is made. 


Segou is the principal town. Pop. esti¬ 
mated at 2,000,000. 

"Ramhprp’ (bam'berg), a town of Ger- 
ojaiuucig many, Bavaria, charmingly 
situated on several hills, on the navigable 
river Regnitz, some 3 miles from its 
mouth in the Main. Pop. 45,308. 
■Ramlri-nn (bam-be'no ; Ital., an infant), 
u u t]ie fi g ure of our saviour rep¬ 
resented as an infant in swaddling 
clothes. The Santissimo Bambino in the 
church of Ara Cseli at Rome, a richly 
decorated figure carved in wood, is be¬ 
lieved by the people to have a miraculous 
virtue in curing diseases. Bambinos are 
set up for the veneration of the faithful 
in many places in Catholic countries. 

Bambocciades <“^S> 

tesque, of common, rustic, or low life, 
such as those of Peter Van Laar, a 
Dutch painter of the 17th century, who 
on account of his deformity was called 
Bamboccio (cripple). Teniers is the 
great master of this style. 

Ttamhnn (bam-bo'), the common name 
.uamuuu of the arbore scent grasses be¬ 
longing to the genus Bambiisa. There 
are many species, belonging to the 
warmer parts of Asia, Africa, and 
America, and growing from a few feet 
to as much as 100, requiring much mois- 



1, Bamboo (B. arundinacea) , showing its 
mode of growth. 2, Flowers, leaves, and stem 
on a larger Scale. 

ture to thrive properly. The best-known 
species is B. arundinacea, common in 
tropical and subtropical regions. From 
the creeping underground rhizome, which 
is long, thick, and jointed, spring several 
























BANANA TREE, HONOLULU 

The broad leaves are half grown fruit of this most useful tropic growth. 




Bambook 


Banbury 


round jointed stalks, which send out from 
their joints several shoots, the stalks 
also being armed at their joints with 
one or two sharp, rigid spines. The oval 
leaves, 8 or 9 inches long, are placed 
on short footstalks. The flowers grow 
in large panicles from the joints of the 
stalk. Some stems grow to 8 or 10 
inches in diameter, and are so hard and 
durable as to be used for building pur¬ 
poses. The smaller stalks are used for 
walking-sticks, flutes, etc.; and indeed 
the plant is used for innumerable pur¬ 
poses in the East Indies, China, and 
other Eastern countries. Cottages are 
almost wholly made of it; also, bridges, 
boxes, water-pipes, ladders, fences, bows 
and arrows, spears, baskets, mats, paper, 
masts for boats, etc. The young shoots 
are pickled and eaten (see Atchar ), or 
otherwise used as food; the seeds of 
some species are also eaten. The sub¬ 
stance called tabasheer is a siliceous de¬ 
posit that gathers at the internodes of 
the stems. The bamboo is imported into 
Europe and America as a paper material 
as well as for other purposes. 

■Ra-mhnnk (bam-bbk'), a country in 
Ucliii uuuts. Western Africa between the 

Falgme and Senegal rivers, about 140 
miles in length, by 80 to 100 in breadth. 
It is on the whole hilly and somewhat 
rugged. The valleys and plains are re¬ 
markably fertile, and the country is 
rich in iron and gold. The natives are 
Mandingoes, mostly professed Moham¬ 
medans, most of whom acknowledge the 
supremacy of France. Gold and ivory 
are exchanged for European goods. 

Bambook-butter, shea-butter. 

Bambusa. See Bamboo. 

"Ramian (b&-me-4n'), a valley and pass 
HdULLcli o £ Afghanistan, the latter at 

an elevation of 8496 feet, the only known 
pass over the Hindu Kush for artillery 
and heavy transport. The valley is one 
of the chief centers of Buddhist worship, 
and contains two remarkable colossal 
statues and other ancient monuments. 

Bam.0 (b4'mo). See Bhamo. 

T?ci Tnntnn (bam p* ton) Lectures, a 
jjciiiijj tuii course 0 f lectures established 

in 1751 by John Bampton, canon of 
Salisbury, who bequeathed certain prop¬ 
erty to the University of Oxford for the 
endowment of eight divinity lectures to 
be annually delivered. A similar course 
of lectures, the Hulsean, is annually de¬ 
livered at Cambridge. 

in political law, is equivalent to 
a 9 excommunication in ecclesiastical. 
In Teutonic history the ban was an edict 


of interdiction or proscription: thus, to 
put a prince under the ban of the empire 
was to divest him of his dignities, and 
to interdict all intercourse and all offices 
of humanity with the offender. Some¬ 
times whole cities have been put under 
the ban; that is, deprived of their rights 
and privileges. 

Belli aucientl y> a title given to the mili- 
9 tary chiefs who guarded the eastern 
marches of Hungary, now the title of the 
governor of Croatia and Slavonia, a divi¬ 
sion of the kingdom of Hungary. A 
province over which a ban is placed is 
called banat. 

"Rn yi a n a (ba-na'na), a plant of the genus 
uanaua Musa * nat or(Jer Mugace g ej 

being M. sapientum , while the plantain 
is M. paradisidca. It is indigenous to 
the East Indies, and is an herbaceous 
plant with an underground stem. The 
apparent stem, which is sometimes as 
high as 30 feet, is formed of the closely 
compacted sheaths of the leaves. The 
leaves are 6 to 10 feet long and 1 or 
more broad, with a strong midrib, from 
which the veins are given off at right 
angles; they are used for thatch, basket¬ 
making, etc., besides yielding a useful 
fiber. The spikes of the flowers grow 
nearly 4 feet long, in bunches, covered 
with purple-colored bracts. The fruit 
is 4 to 10 or 12 inches long, and 1 inch 
or more in diameter; it grows in large 
bunches, weighing often from 40 to 80 
lbs. The pulp is soft and of a luscious 
taste ; when ripe it is eaten raw or fried 
in slices. The banana is cultivated in all 
tropical and subtropical countries, and 
is a highly important article of food. 
Manilla hemp is the product of a species 
of the Musa genus. 

"Ra n a 'n a an African port, belonging to 
naiid lie i, the Congo Free State, situated 

at the mouth of the river Congo. 

"Ra n a n a -hi rrl a pretty insessorial bird 

.Banana Dir a, {JcUrus i eU copteryx ), a 

native of the West Indies and the warmer 
parts of America. It is a lively bird, 
easily domesticated, tawny and black in 
color, with white bars upon the wings. 

Banat. See Ban. 

‘Ran'hvirlo’P a town of Ireland, 
nan Ullage, County Downt 2 2 miles 

s. w. of Belfast, on the Bann. The 
manufacture of linen is carried on to a 
great extent in town and neighborhood. 
Pop. about 5000. 

"Ran Tin rv (banODe-ri), a town of England, 
a u u y in Oxford, long celebrated for 
its cheese, its cakes, and its ale. Its 
famous old cross, which exisrted down 
to the time of Elizabeth, is now repre¬ 
sented by a modern one. Pop. 13,463. 



Banca 


Bande Noire 


’Dn T1P o (bang'ka), an island belonging to 
Dutc j 1 East indies, between 
Sumatra and Borneo, 130 miles long, 
with a width varying from 10 to 30; 
pop. 1900, 80,921, a considerable propor¬ 
tion being Chinese. It is celebrated for 
its excellent tin, of which the annual 
yield is above 4000 tons. 

BailCO (k an g /k °)» i n commerce, a term 
a ^ employed to designate the money 
in which the banks of some countries 
keep or kept their accounts, in contra¬ 
distinction to the current money of the 
place, which might vary in value or con¬ 
sist of light and foreign coins. The 
term was applied to the Hamburg bank 
accounts before the adoption (in 1873) 
of the new German coinage. The mark 
banco had a value of about 35 cents; but 
there was no corresponding coin. See 
Bank. 


"RsmVrnft George, an historian, born 
J near Worcester, Massa¬ 
chusetts, in 1800. He was educated 
at Harvard and in Germany, where he 
made the acquaintance of many literary 
men of note. In 1824 he published a 
translation of Heeren’s Politics of An¬ 
cient Greece, and a small volume of 
poems, and was also meditating and col¬ 
lecting materials for a history of the 
United States. Between 1834 and 1840 
three volumes of this history were pub¬ 
lished. In 1845 he was appointed secre¬ 
tary of the navy, and effected many 
reforms and improvements in that de¬ 
partment. He was American ambassador 
to England from 1846 to 1849, when the 
University of Oxford conferred on him 
the honorary degree of D.C.L. He took 
the opportunity while in Europe to per¬ 
fect his collections on American history. 
He returned to New York in 1849, and 
began to prepare for the press the fourth 
and fifth volumes of his history, which 
appeared in 1852. The sixth appeared 
in 1854, the seventh in 1858, the eighth 
soon after, but the ninth did not appear 
till 1866. From 1867 to 1874 he was 
minister plenipotentiary at the court of 
Berlin. The tenth and last volume of 
his great work appeared in 1874. An 
additional section appeared as a separate 
work in 1882: History of the Formation 
of the Constitution of the United States. 
Mr. Bancroft settled in Washington on 
returning from Germany in 1875, and 
died January 12, 1891. 

Bancroft, Hubert Howe, was born at 
’ Granville, Ohio, in 1832, 
and at the age af twenty started a book 
store in San Francisco. There he col¬ 
lected on local history a library of sixty 
thousand volumes and copies of docu¬ 
ments which he and assistants used in 
writing The Native Races of the Pacific 


States (5 vols.) ; History of the Pacific 
States (34 vols.) ; Chronicles of the 
Builders of Commonwealths (7 vols.), 
and other warks. 

■Ra n 'prnf f Richard, born in Lancashire 
£>ciii iaun , 1544 died 1610i studied at 

Cambridge, entered the church, and rose 
rapidly during the reign of Elizabeth till 
he obtained the see of London in 1597. 
James I made him Archbishop of Can¬ 
terbury on the death of Whitgift. He 
suppressed the Puritans mercilessly, and 
they in return never ceased to abuse him. 
‘RflYirlpo’P (ban'daj), a surgical wrapper 
of some kind applied to a limb 
or other portion of the body to keep parts 
in position, exert a pressure, or for other 
purpose. To be able to apply a bandage 
suitably in the case of an accident is a 
highly useful accomplishment, which, 
through the teaching of ambulance sur¬ 
gery now so common, may be easily ac¬ 
quired. 


"RmiHa (ban'da) Islands, a group be- 
ojduuci longingto Holland, in the Indian 

Archipelago, south of Ceram, Great 
Banda, the largest, being 12 miles long 
by 2 broad. They are beautiful islands, 
of volcanic origin, yielding quantities of 
nutmeg and mace. Goenong Api, or Fire 
Mountain, is a cone-shaped volcano which 
rises 2320 feet above the sea. Pop. about 
8000. 

"Randan vi a (ban-dan'a), a variety of silk 
isanaanna handkerchief having a uni¬ 
formly dyed ground, usually of bright 
red or blue, ornamented with white or 
yellow circular, lozenge-shaped, or other 
simple figures produced by discharging 
the ground color. 


Banda Oriental. See Uruguay. 

Bandello ^an-del'lo), Matteo. an 
Italian writer of novelle or 
tales, born about 1480, died about 1562. 
He was, in his youth, a Dominican monk, 
and having been banished from Italy as 
a partisan of the French. Henry II of 
France gave him in 1550 the bishopric of 
Agen. He left the administration of his 
diocese to the Bishop of Grasse, and em¬ 
ployed himself, at the advanced age of 
seventy, in the completion of his novelle. 
He also wrote poetry, but his fame rests 
on his novelle, which are in the style of 
Boccaccio, and have been made use of 
by Shakespere, Massinger, and Beaumont 
and Fletcher. 


"Ranrlp "KTnivp (band nwar), the name 
xsanae 1NOire given when the revolu¬ 
tion in France had entailed the confisca¬ 
tion of much ecclesiastical property, also 
many castles and residences of the emi¬ 
grant and resident nobility, to a number 
of speculators who bought up the edifices, 




Eye Bandage, Double. Gibson’s Bandage. 



Spica of the Shoulder. 


Velpeau’s Bandage. 



The Gauntlet. Bandage of Foot. (Spica of Instep.) 


TYPES OF BANDAGES 























Band-fish 


Banff 


etc., in order to demolish them and turn 
their materials to profit. They were so 
called on account of their disregard of 
sacred property, of art, antiquity, and 
historical associations. 

TJonrl fioTi the popular name of fishes 
DdllU of the genus Gepola, from 

their long, flat, thin bodies. G. rubes- 
cens, a very fragile creature, is some¬ 
times cast up on British shores. Also 
called Snake-fish, Ribbon-fish. 
'Rqridinnnt (ban'di-kot), the Mas gi- 
£>cUiUlLUUl ganUu8t the largest known 

species of rat, attaining the weight of 2 
or 3 lbs., and the length, including the 
tail, of 24 to 30 inches. It is a native of 
India, and is very abundant in Ceylon. 
Its flesh is said to be delicate and to re¬ 
semble young pork, and is a favorite 
article of diet with the coolies. It is 
destructive to rice fields and gardens.— 
The name is also given to a family of 
Australian marsupials. The most com¬ 
mon species ( Perameles nasiita) , the 
long-nosed bandicoot, measures about 1% 
feet from the tip of the snout to the 
origin of the tail, and in general appear¬ 
ance bears a considerable resemblance to 
a large overgrown rat. 

■Randinplll (ban-de-nel'Ie), Baccio, an 
jj dll u.1 lie ill Italian sculptor, born at 

Florence in 1493; died there in 1560. 
He was jealous of and strove to rival 
Michael Angelo. Among his works are a 
Hercules and Cacus, Christ's body held 
up by an Angel, Adam and Eve. etc. 
■Ron'Hit Italian bandito, originally an 
‘ Dcl ’ exile, banished man, or out¬ 

law, and hence, as persons outlawed fre¬ 
quently adopted the profession of brigand 
or highwayman, the word came to be 
synonymous with brigand, and is now ap¬ 
plied to members of the organized gangs 
which infest some districts of Italy, 
Sicily, Spain, Greece, and Turkey. 
■Ronrlnlppr (ban'do-ler), a large leath- 

uanuuieei ern be]t or ba]drick) t0 

which were attached a bag for balls and 
a number of pipes or cases of wood or 
metal covered with leather, each contain¬ 
ing a charge of gunpowder. It was worn 
by ancient musketeers and hung from the 
left shoulder under the right arm with 
the ball bag at the lower extremity, and 
the pipes suspended on either side. The 
name is sometimes given to the small 
cases themselves, now superseded by car¬ 
tridges. 

■RanriftliriP (ban'do-len), a gummy per- 
.Ddiiuuiiiie fumed substance used to 

impart gloss and stiffness to the hair. 

■Ran'/Inn a town of Ireland, County 
■Dclll UUJI, Cork oQ bQth gideg of the 

Bandon. Pop. 3997. 


Bands a sma11 article of clerical dress 
9 made of linen going round the 
neck and hanging down in front for a 
short distance in two pieces with square 
ends, supposed to be a relic of the amice. 
Baneberry (ban'ber-i), Actcea spiedta, 
J an European plant, order 
Ranunculaceae, local in England, with a 
spike of white flowers and black, poison¬ 
ous berries. Two American species are 
considered remedies for rattlesnake bite. 
Baner (ba-nar'), .Tohan Gustafsson, 
a Swedish general in the Thirty 
Years’ war, born in 1596; died in 1641. 
He made his first compaigns in Poland 
and Russia, and accompanied Gustavus 
Adolphus, who held him in high esteem, 
to Germany, and commanded the right 
wing in the memorable battle of Leipzig. 
After the death of Gustavus in 1632 he 
was made commander-in-chief of the 
Swedish army, and in 1634 invaded Bo¬ 
hemia, defeated the Saxons at Wittstock, 
24th September, 1636, and took Torgau. 
He ravaged Saxony again in 1639, gained 
another victory at Chemnitz, and subse¬ 
quently defeated Piccoloraini and over¬ 
ran and laid waste a great part of Ger¬ 
many. In the year of his death he nearly 
took Ratisbon by surprise. 

Bailff (bamf), county town of Banffshire, 
Scotland, a seaport on the Moray 
Firth at the mouth of the Deveron. It 
is well built, carries on some shipbuild¬ 
ing, and has a rope and sail work, a 
brewery, etc., with a fishing and shipping 
trade. On the east side of the Deveron 
is the town of Macduff, where an exten¬ 
sive fishing trade is carried on. Pop. 
7148.—The county has an area of 641 
sq. miles. In the south it is moun¬ 
tainous ; but the northern part is com¬ 
paratively low and fertile; principal 
rivers, the Spey and Deveron ; principal 
mountains. Cairngorm (4095 ft.) and 
Ben Macdhui (4296 ft.), on its southern 
boundary. Little wheat is raised, the 
principal crops being barley, oats, tur¬ 
nips, and potatoes. Fishing is an im¬ 
portant industry ; as is also the distilling 
of whisky. Cattle breeding, is the prin¬ 
cipal industry. Serpentine abounds in 
several places, especially at Portsoy, 
where it is known as ‘ Portsoy marble,’ 
and Scotch topazes or cairngorm stones 
are found on the mountains in the south. 


Pop. 61,500. 

"RanfF (banf), a station on the Cana- 
DdIAli dian Pacific R. R. in S. W. 
Alberta and in the Rocky Mountain 
National Park of Canada. It is a health 
and pleasure resort with magnificent 
scenery, a boiling sulphur spring, open air 
swimming pools, and sanatorium. 



Bang 


Banishment 


Bang. See Bhang. 


Bangalore (bang-ga-lor'), a town of 
-DdJigcUUie Hindustan> ca pital of My- 

sore, and giving its name to a consider¬ 
able district in the east of Mysore state. 
The town stands on a healthy plateau 
3000 feet above sea-level, has a total 
area of nearly 14 square miles and is 
one of the pleasantest British stations in 
India. In the old town stands the fort, 
reconstructed by Hyder Ali in 1761, and 
taken by Lord Cornwallis in 1791. Un¬ 
der English administration the town has 
greatly prospered in recent times. There 
are manufactures of silks, cotton cloth, 
carpets, gold and silver lace, etc. Pop. 
159,046. The Bangalore district has an 
area of nearly 3000 square miles, of 
which more than half represents culti¬ 
vable land. 


Bangkok, 


or Bankok (bang-kok'), 
the capital of the kingdom 
of Siam extending for several miles on 
both sides of the Menam, which falls into 
the Gulf of Siam about 15 miles below. 
The inner city occupies an island sur¬ 
rounded with walls and bastions, and con¬ 
tains the palace of the king and other im¬ 
portant buildings. The dwellings of the 
common people are of wood or bamboo, 
often raised on piles; a large portion of 
the population, however, dwells in boats 
or wooden houses erected on bamboo rafts 
moored in the river, and forming a float¬ 
ing town. Temples are numerous and 
lavishly decorated. Houses in the 
European style are beginning to be 
erected, and among other advances re¬ 
cently made are the introduction of the 
telegraph and telephone, gas, fire-engines, 
and trolley cars. The trade, both inland 
and foreign, is very extensive, the ex¬ 
ports consisting chiefly of rice, sugar, 
silk, cotton, tobacco, pepper, sesame, 
ivory, aromatic wood, cabinet woods, tin, 
hides, etc.; and the imports consisting 
chiefly of British cotton, woolen, and 
other goods. Pop. estimated variously at 
from 250,000 to 600,000, of whom about 
a half are Chinese. 


Banffles (bang'gls), ornamental rings 
& worn upon the arms and 
ankles in India and Africa. 

Bangor (bang'gor), a city of North 
° Wales, in Caernarvonshire, 
picturesquely situated near the northern 
entrance of the Menai Strait. It appears 
to have possessed a cathedral in the 
sixth century, though the present cathe¬ 
dral—the third—only dates from the 
reign of Henry VII. There is also a 
university college. Since the construction 
of the Menai bridge Bangor has risen 
into some importance as a popular re¬ 


sort ; its principal trade is in the export 
of slates from the neighboring quarries. 
Pop. (1911) 11,237. 

Vav a seaport and watering 
o 9 place of Ireland, County 
Down, on the south side of Bel¬ 
fast Lough. Principal trade; cotton, 
linen, and embroideries. Pop. about 
3800. 

q>qy» a seaport, capital of Penob- 
o ? scot Co., Maine, at the head 
of navigation on Penobscot River, a 
flourishing and pleasantly situated town, 
and with an immense business in lumber. 
A dam across the Penobscot, just above 
the city, furnishes water power for many 
mills. The river is navigable to the town 
for vessels of the largest size. Pop. 
24,803. 

Bangs'ring. See Banxring. 

Banp’weolo (bang-we-6'lo), Lake, in 
.Dcuigweuiu South Africa> the south _ 

ernmost of the great lake reservoirs of 
the Congo, discovered by Livingstone in 
1868, an oval-shaped shallow sheet of 
water, said to be 150 miles in length 
along its greater axis from east to west, 
and about 75 miles in width, but its exact 
limits are uncertain. 

Bailiail (ban'yan), or Ban'yan, an 
Indian trader or merchant, 
one engaged in commerce generally, but 
more particularly one of the great traders 
of Western India, as in the seaports of 
Bombay, Kurrachee, etc., who carry on a 
large trade by means of caravans with 
the interior of Asia, and with Africa by 
vessels. They form a class of the 
Vaisya caste, wear a peculiar dress, and 
are strict in the observance of fasts and 
in abstaining from the use of flesh. 
Hence —Banian days , days in which 
sailors in the navy had no flesh meat 
served out to them. Banian days are 
now abolished, but the term is still ap¬ 
plied to days of poor fare. 

Banian-tree. See Banyan. 

"Ranim (ba'nim), John, an Irish 
aiiiiii novelist dramatist, and poet, 
born 1798; died in 1842. His chief 

early work was a poem, The Celt's Para¬ 
dise (1821). Having settled in London, 
he made various contributions to maga¬ 
zines and to the stage; but his fame 
rests on his novels, particularly the 
O'Hara Tales , in which Irish life is ad¬ 
mirably portrayed. In these, as in some 
of his other publications, his brother, 
Michael Banim (born 1796; died 1874), 
had an important share, if not an equal 
claim to praise. 

Banishment ( |“' e ish ' menl) - See 






Banjarmassin 


Bank 


Banjarmassin £ 

the southeast of Borneo, under the gov¬ 
ernment of the Dutch. The town is situ¬ 
ated on an arm of the Banjar, about 14 
miles above its mouth, in a marshy local¬ 
ity, the houses being built on piles, and 
many of them on rafts. Exports: pep¬ 
per, gold dust, precious stones, rattan, 
dragon’s-blood, bird’s-nests, etc.; imports : 
rice, salt, sugar, opium, etc. Pop. about 
40,000. 

Banio ( ban 'jo; a negro corruption of 
it. pandora , from L., 
pandoura, a three-stringed instrument), 
the favorite musical 
instrument of the 
negroes of the South¬ 
ern United States. It 
is six-stringed, has a 
body like a tambourine 
and a neck like a 
guitar, and is played 
by stopping the strings 
with the fingers of the 
left hand and twitch- 
Banjo. j n g or striking them 

with the fingers of the right. The upper 
or octave string, however, is never 
stopped. 

"Rarnnpmas (b&n'yo-mas), a town in 
isanjoeilldb j ava> near the center of 

the island, well built and of commercial 
importance; it is 22 miles from j.the 
coast, and is the residence of a Dutch 
governor. Pop. about 6000. 

"RanI t primarily an establishment for 
the depos i t> custody, and repay¬ 
ment on demand of money ; and obtain¬ 
ing the bulk of its profits from the in¬ 
vestment of sums thus derived and not 
in immediate demand. The term is a 
derivative of the banco or bench of the 
early Italian money dealers, being 
analogous in its origin to the terms 
trapezltai ( trapeza , a bench or table) 
applied to the ancient Greek money¬ 
changers, and mensarii ( mensa , a table) 
applied to the public bankers of Rome. 

In respect of constitution there is a 
broad division of banks into public and 
private; public banks including such es¬ 
tablishments as are under any special 
state or municipal control or patronage, 
or whose capital is in the form of stock 
or shares which are bought and sold in 
the open market; private banks em¬ 
bracing those which are carried on by 
one or more individuals without special 
authority or charter and under the laws 
regulating ordinary trading companies. 
In respect of function three kinds of 
banks may be discriminated: (1) banks 
of deposit merely, receiving and return¬ 
ing money at the convenience of deposi¬ 



tors; (2) banks of discount or loan, 

borrowing money on deposit and lending 
it in the discount of promissory notes, 
bills of exchange, and negotiable securi¬ 
ties ; (3) banks of circulation or issue, 
which give currency to promissory notes 
of their own, payable to bearer and 
serving as a medium of exchange within 
the sphere of their banking operations. 
The more highly organized banks dis¬ 
charge all three functions, but all modern 
banks unite the two first. For the suc¬ 
cessful working of a banking establish¬ 
ment certain resources other than the 
deposits are of course necessary, and the 
subscribed capital, that is the money paid 
up by shareholders on their shares and 
forming the substantial portion of their 
claim to public credit, is held upon a 
different footing to the sums received 
from depositors. It is usually considered 
that for sound banking this capital 
should not be traded with for the pur¬ 
pose of making gain in the same way as 
the monies deposited in the bank; and it 
is for the most part invested in govern¬ 
ment or other securities subject to little 
fluctuation in value and readily con¬ 
vertible into money. But in any case 
prudence demands that a reserve be kept 
sufficient to meet all probable require¬ 
ments of customers in event of commer¬ 
cial crises or minor panics. The reserve 
of the banking department of the Bank 
of England is always in coin, or in notes 
against which an equivalent value of 
coin and bullion is lying in the issue 
department. In other English banks the 
reserve is usually kept partly in gold 
and partly in government stocks and 
Bank of England notes; but it sometimes 
lies as a deposit in the Bank of England. 
The working capital proper of a bank is 
constituted by monies on deposit, for 
which the bank may or may not pay 
interest; the advantages of security, of 
ease in the transmission of payments, 
etc., being regarded in the cases of banks 
little affected by competition as a suffi¬ 
cient return to the depositor. Thus the 
Bank of England pays no interest on de¬ 
posits, while the contrary practice has 
prevailed in Scotland since 1729 and is 
now common in the United States. 

Of the methods of making profit upon 
the money of depositors, one of the most 
common is to advance it in the discount¬ 
ing of bills of exchange not having long 
periods (seldom more than 3 months with 
the national banks) to run ; the banker 
receiving the amounts of the bills from 
the acceptors when the bills arrive at 
maturity. Loans or advances are also 
often made by bankers upon exchequer 
bills or other government securities, on 



Bank 


Bank 


railway debentures or the stock of public 
companies of various kinds, as well as 
upon goods lying in public warehouses, 
the dock-warrant or certificate of owner¬ 
ship being transferred to the banker in 
security. In the case of a well-estab¬ 
lished credit they may be advanced upon 
notes of hand without other security. 
Money is less commonly advanced by 
bankers upon mortgages on land, in 
which the money loaned is almost in¬ 
variably locked up for a number of 
years. To banks of issue a further 
source of profit is open in their note 
circulation, inasmuch as the bank is en¬ 
abled to lend these notes, or promises to 
pay, as if they were so much money and 
to receive interest on the loan accord¬ 
ingly, as well as to make a profitable 
use of the money or property that may 
be received in exchange for its notes, so 
long as the latter remain in circulation. 
It is obvious, however, that this interest 
on its loaned notes may not run over a 
very extended period, in that the person 
to whom they are issued may at once 
return them to the bank to lie there as 
a deposit and so may actually draw 
interest on them from the bank of issue; 
or he may present them to be exchanged 
for coin, or by putting them at once 
into circulation may ensure a certain 
number speedily finding their way back 
through other hands or other banks to 
the establishment from which he received 
them. A considerable number of the 
notes issued will, however, be retained 
in circulation at the convenience of the 
public as a medium of exchange; and 
on this circulating portion a clear profit 
accrues. This rapid return of notes 
through other banks, etc., in exchange 
for portions of the reserve of the issuing 
bank, is one of the restraints upon an 
issue of notes in excess of the ability of 
the bank to meet them. 

In specific relation to his customer the 
banker occupies the position of debtor to 
creditor, holding money which the cus¬ 
tomer may demand at any time in whole 
or in part by means of a check payable 
at sight on presentation during banking 
hours. For the refusal to cash a check 
from the erroneous supposition that he 
has no funds of his customer's in his 
hands, or for misleading statements re¬ 
specting the position in which the bank 
stands, the banker is legally responsible. 
Moreover, the law regards him as bound 
to know his customer’s signature, and 
the loss falls upon him in event of his 
cashing a forged check. In their re¬ 
lations to the community, the chief serv¬ 
ices rendered by banks are the follow¬ 
ing:—By receiving deposits of money, 


and massing in sums efficient for exten¬ 
sive enterprises the smaller savings of 
individuals, they are the means of keep¬ 
ing fully and constantly employed a large 
portion of the capital of the community 
which, but for their agency, would be 
unproductive; they are the means by 
which the surplus capital of one part of 
a country is transferred to another where 
it may be advantageously employed in 
stimulating industry; they enable vast 
and numerous money transactions to be 
carried on without the intervention of 
coin or notes at all, thus obviating 
trouble, risk, and expense. 

Although banking operations on a con¬ 
siderable scale appear to have been con¬ 
ducted by the ancients, modern banking 
must be regarded as having had an in¬ 
dependent origin in the reviving civiliza¬ 
tion of the middle ages. In the twelfth 
century almost the whole trade of Europe 
was in the hands of the Italian cities, 
and it was in these that the need of 
bankers was first felt. The earliest pub¬ 
lic bank, that of Venice, established in 
1171 and existing down to the dissolu¬ 
tion of the republic in 1797, was for 
some time a bank of deposit only, the 
government being responsible for the de¬ 
posits. and the whole capital being in 
effect a public loan. In the early periods 
of the operations of this bank deposits 
could not be withdrawn, but the depositor 
had a credit at the bank to the amount 
deposited, this credit being transferable 
to another person in place of money pay¬ 
ment. Subsequently deposits were al¬ 
lowed to be withdrawn, the original sys¬ 
tem proving inconvenient outside the 
Venetian boundaries. It was, however, 
less from the Bank of Venice than from 
the Florentine bankers of the 13th and 
14th centuries that modern banking 
specially dates, the magnitude of their 
operations being indicated by the fact 
that between 1430 and 1433, 76 bankers 
of Florence issued on loan nearly 
5,000,000 gold florins. The Bank of St. 
George at Genoa also furnished a strik¬ 
ing chapter in financial history. The 
important Bank of Amsterdam, taken by 
Adam Smith as a type of the older banks, 
was established in 1609, and owed its 
origin to the fluctuation and uncertainty 
induced by the clipped and worn cur¬ 
rency. The object of the institution (es¬ 
tablished under guarantee of the city) 
was to give a certain and unquestionable 
value to a bill on Amsterdam ; and for 
this purpose the various coins were re¬ 
ceived in deposit at the bank at their real 
value in standard coin, less a small 
charge for recoinage and expense of man¬ 
agement. For the amount deposited a 



Bank 


Bank 


credit was opened on the books of the 
bank, by the transfer of which payments 
could be made, this so-called bank money 
being of uniform value as representing 
money at the mint standard. It bore, 
therefore, an agio or premium above the 
worn coin currency, and it was legally 
compulsory to make all payments of 600 
guilders and upwards in bank money. 
The deposits were supposed to remain in 
the coffers of the bank, but they were 
secretly traded with in the 18th century 
till the collapse of the bank in 1790. 
Banks of similar character were estab¬ 
lished at Nuremberg and other towns, 
the most important being the bank of 
Hamburg, founded in 1619. In England 
there was no corresponding institution, 
the London merchants being in the habit 
of lodging their money at the Mint in 
the Tower, until Charles I appropriated 
the whole of it (£200,000) in 1640. 
Thenceforth they lodged it with the gold¬ 
smiths, who began to do banking business 
in a small way, encouraging deposits by 
allowing interest (4 d. a day) for their 
use, lending money for short periods, 
discounting bills, etc. The bank-note was 
first invented and issued in 1690 by the 
Bank of Sweden, founded by Palmstruck 
in 1688, and one of the most successful 
of banking establishments. About the 
same time the banks of England and 
Scotland began to take shape, opening up 
a new era in the financing of commerce 
and industry. 

The Bank of England, the most im¬ 
portant banking establishment in the 
world, was projected by William Pater¬ 
son, who was afterwards the promoter 
of the disastrous Darien scheme. It was 
the first public bank in the United King¬ 
dom, and was chartered in 1694 by an 
act which, among other things, secured 
certain recompenses to such persons as 
should advance the sum of £1,500,000 
towards carrying on the war against 
France. Subscribers to the loan became, 
under the act, stockholders, to the amount 
of their respective subscriptions, in the 
capital stock of a corporation, denomi¬ 
nated the Governor and Company of the 
Bank of England. The company thus 
formed, advanced to the government 
£1,200,000 at an interest of 8 per cent— 
the government making an additional 
bonus or allowance to the bank of £4000 
annually for the management of this loan 
(which, in fact, constituted the capital 
of the bank), and for settling the interest 
and making transfers, etc., among the 
various stockholders. This bank, like 
that of Venice, was thus originally an 
engine of the government, and not a mere 
commercial establishment. Its capital 


has been added to from time to time, the 
original capital of £1,200,000 having in¬ 
creased to £14,553,000 ($72,765,000) in 
1800, since which no further augmenta¬ 
tion has taken place. 

The other English banks consist of nu¬ 
merous joint-stock and private banks in 
London and the provinces, many of the 
provincial establishments of both kinds 
having the right to issue notes. Private 
banks in London with not more than six 
partners have never been prevented from 
issuing notes, but they could not profit¬ 
ably compete with the Bank of England. 

Of all other banks, the Bank of France 
is second in importance only to the Bank 
of England. It was established in the be¬ 
ginning of the nineteenth century, at first 
with a capital of 45,000,000 francs, and 
with the exclusive privilege in Paris of 
issuing notes payable to bearer, a privi¬ 
lege which was extended in 1848 to cover 
the whole of France. It has numerous 
branches in the larger towns, a number 
of these having been acquired in 1848, 
when certain joint-stock banks of issue 
were by government decree incorporated 
with the Bank of France, the capital of 
which was then increased to 91,250,000 
francs ($18,250,000) in 91,250 shares of 
1000 francs each. In 1857 the capital 
was doubled, and besides this it has a 
large surplus capital or rest. Like the 
Bank of England, it is a bank of deposit, 
discount, and circulation, and is a large 
creditor of the state. 

Citizens of Philadelphia were the orig¬ 
inators of the first bank organized in the 
United States. In 1781 Robert Morris, 
superintendent of finance, introduced to 
Congress a plan for establishing the Bank 
of North America at Philadelphia; on 
Dec. 31 a perpetual charter was granted 
to that institution, and on Jan. 2, 1782, 
the bank opened for business. The Mas¬ 
sachusetts Bank was incorporated by the 
Legislature of that State in 1784. and 
this was followed. Mar, 21, 1791, by the 
charter of the Bank of New York, which, 
however, had been doing business since 
1784 under ‘ articles of association ’ 
drawn up by Alexander Hamilton, a mem¬ 
ber of its original board of directors. 
These three institutions, converted into 
national banks, are still in existence and 
in a prosperous condition. On Dec. 13. 
1790, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of 
the Treasury, in his report to Congress, 
originated the plan of establishing a Bank 
of the United States. The capital was 
fixed at $10,000,000, two millions of 
which was to be subscribed by the gov¬ 
ernment, the remainder by private and 
corporate subscription, one-fourth to be 
paid in gold and silver and the balance 



Bank 


Bank 


in U. S. stocks bearing interest at 6 per 
cent. Congress sanctioned this plan, and 
Washington approved it Feb. 25, 1791. 
Its charter expired in 1811 and Congress 
refused to renew it, but in 1815 it au¬ 
thorized a second U. S. Bank, the capital 
being fixed at $35,000,000 and the char¬ 
ter, as before, limited to 20 years, ex¬ 
piring March 3, 1836. The following 
year (1816) the currency was greatly 
depreciated. Many State banks, corpora¬ 
tions and firms failed, and the country 
had not overcome the exhaustion arising 
from the late war. The bank in this 
emergency imported over $7,000,000 
from Europe in an attempt to re¬ 
store soundness to the currency. 

State banks were organized in most of 
the States, a number of them having the 
State as sole or part stockholder; fre¬ 
quently the amount of currency was twice 
and even thrice the amount of their 
nominal capital. This begat irrespon¬ 
sible and worthless institutions, many 
charters for such being obtained by cor¬ 
rupt methods. ‘ Wild cat ’ banks, as 
these were called, multiplied and great 
losses followed. In 1814, 1837 and 1857 
specie payments were generally sus¬ 
pended, but many of the banks, especially 
in the Southern and Western States, is¬ 
sued currency without security, and, be¬ 
ing without judicious restrictions, were 
in a continual state of suspension. The 
rates of exchange between the Eastern, 
Western and Southern States were op¬ 
pressive, and the losses to bill-holders 
were enormous. The suspension of specie 
payments in 1837 arose from the failure 
of the United States Bank, the charter 
of which, through the enmity of President 
Jackson, was not renewed. In conse¬ 
quence, when the charter expired in 1836, 
the bank sought to do business under 
state auspices, but failed in the effort, and 
its suspension led to a panic that ruined 
business for several years. 

Various efforts at reform in the bank¬ 
ing system were made, one by Massa¬ 
chusetts in 1813, and a second by New 
York in 1829, the latter opening the way 
for the national banking system, rendered 
necessary by the exigencies of the 
Civil war. A suggestion to this effect 
was presented to Congress by Secretary 
Chase in 1861-62, and an act was passed 
Feb. 25, 1863; this, proving inoperative, 
was superseded by that of June 3, 1864, 
which is the basis of the present national 
system. This provided for the establish¬ 
ment of a national bank bureau in the 
Treasury Department, the head thereof 
being the comptroller of the currency. 
Not less than five persons may organize a 
national bank under this act; in no case 


is the capital stock to be less than 
$100,000, except in cities containing not 
more than a population of 6000, where it 
may be limited to $50,000. In cities 
having a population of 50,000 the capital 
stock must not be less than $200,000. It 
is required that not less than one-third 
of such stock shall be invested in U. S. 
bonds, upon which circulating bills 
may be issued equaling 90 per cent of the 
current value, but not exceeding 90 per 
cent of the par value of the deposited 
bonds. These bills are receivable at par 
in all payments to and from the govern¬ 
ment, except for import duties, in¬ 
terest on the public debt, and in redemp¬ 
tion of the national currency. On March 
3, 1865, an act was passed imposing a 
tax of 10 per cent on the notes of any 
person and State bank used for circula¬ 
tion and paid out by them. This act 
taxed the State bank circulation out of 
existence. The national bank act author¬ 
ized the issue of $300,000,000 of circula¬ 
tion, but this amount has been largely 
increased at various times. The in¬ 
creased use of checks has caused a 
steady decrease in the amount of bills 
in circulation, while the high price of 
U. S. bonds has so reduced the in¬ 
terest as to make it unprofitable to hold 
them as a reserve to secure circulation. 

Since 1861 post-office savings-banks 
have been in operation in Britain; the 
deposits are paid over to the Commis¬ 
sioners for the Reduction of the National 
Debt, who allow interest at 2^ per cent, 
per annum. A similar bill was passed 
by Congress in 1910, interest being fixed 
at 2 per cent, and the limit of deposit 
as $500. France, Austria, Germany, 
Canada and other countries have also 
adopted similar savings-banks. 

Savings-banks began to attract atten¬ 
tion in the United States shortly after 
their inauguration in England, the first 
being organized in New York in 1816, 
but the first one to go into practical 
operation was in Philadelphia in the 
same year. Boston was the first to have 
an incorporated savings-bank, this being 
effected Dec. 13, 1816, business being 
begun in 1817; the United States thus 
anticipated Britain in throwing about 
these banks the protection and sanction 
of law. From that time these examples 
have been rapidly followed. No uniform 
plan of organization for these banks 
exists. In some States there is a large 
number of incorporators who elect trus¬ 
tees and directors from among their 
members; in others the corporators are 
limited in number and are themselves the 
trustees and managers. In the North¬ 
east trustees manage the savings-banks 



Bank 


Bankrupt 


for the depositors; elsewhere they are 
mostly under the control of corporations 
with capital stock. 

The original theory of savings-banks 
was that the earnings, after the repay¬ 
ment of expenses, should be ratably dis¬ 
tributed among the depositors. After¬ 
ward this was supplemented by the 
reserving of a sum for the meeting of any 
losses which might occur, begetting a 
surplus as security. Still later has 
grown a practice of paying a given rate 
of interest, but this is a departure from 
the real principle of savings-banks. Many 
of these institutions give a further 
dividend in addition to the stated in¬ 
terest, according as the dividend term 
has been prosperous or otherwise. In 
general the deposits, though there is 
much diversity in the several States, are 
invested in real estate securities. United 
States bonds, the stock of corporations 
of unquestioned credit, the bonded obli¬ 
gations of cities and railroads and other 
securities and on loans thereon. In most 
of the States there is legal restriction 
on the amounts which may be deposited,. 
but these are generally loosely enforced. 

In Canada and Australia the bank 
system is largely under government 
management, and this is especially 
the case in New Zealand, although these 
countries also have a number of private 
institutions, all of which, however, are 
subject to stringent laws. A number of 
the ordinary banks also perform to a 
large degree the functions of savings- 
banks. 

In France the savings-banks system 
arose in 1818, but it was not until 1835 
that the banks were regulated by law. 
Since that time their advancement has 
been rapid, and enormous amounts now 
stand on deposit, the postoffice savings 
banks doing the greater share of the 
business. 

There are also dime savings-banks. 
School savings-banks, besides, have been 
largely introduced through the United 
States, and much good has resulted by 
the teaching of thrift among scholars. 
There are other institutions in many of 
the large cities which promote savings 
by giving a considerable bonus if the 
deposits are allowed to remain for a cer¬ 
tain period, but these, of course, are 
charitable institutions and not within the 
scope of this article. 

An important feature in connection 
with the banking system is that of the 
clearing-house, which, in the United 
States, was first put in operation in New 
York, Oct. 11, 1853. Since that time 
this plan has been adopted in every im¬ 
portant money center and city. Each 


bank in its daily dealings receives large 
amounts of, and checks on, other banks; 
thus, at the close of the day’s business 
each one has various sums due it by 
other banks; it is likewise the debtor of 
other banks who have received bills, 
checks, and drafts drawn upon it. The 
settlement by means of the clearing¬ 
house is simultaneously and quickly ef¬ 
fected, the banks now having no direct 
business with each other save through 
this medium, which enables them to 
settle with each other every day. The 
close relation between the several banks 
thus instituted enables them easily to 
act in co-operation in times of financial 
stress. 

In 1861 it is doubtful if the govern¬ 
ment could have effected the necessary 
loans at the outbreak of the Civil War 
but for the aid of the banks of New 
York. Certainly without the Clearing¬ 
house Association the banks could not 
have furnished the funds which estab¬ 
lished the credit of the United States and 
enabled it to negotiate its bonds to the 
enormous amount of $2,000,000,000. The 
Panic in 1873 was checked, to some 
extent, by similar action ; and the same 
took place in later instances; the former 
experience teaching the banks to act with 
prompiness in combining their entire 
resources by the use of a large output 
of loan certificates. 

A record is kept by the clearing-house 
staff of the daily transactions of each 
bank, together with a statement of the 
loans, specie, deposits, legal tender and 
circulation made weekly to the manager 
of the clearing-house ; thus the condition 
of each bank can be accurately estimated. 
See also Clearing-house. 

Banki'va Fowl 

Northern India, Java, Sumatra, etc., 
believed to be the original of our common 
domestic fowls. 

Bankrupt (bangk'rupt; from 11. 

JJdliivI UjJl hanca ^ a bench> and Lat 

ruptus, broken, in allusion to the benches 
formerly used by the money-lenders in 
Italy, which were broken in case of their 
failure), a person whom the law does or 
may take cognizance of as unable to 
pay his debts. Properly it is of narrower 
signification than insolvent, an insolvent 
person simply being unable to pay all 
his debts. In England up till 1861 the 
term bankrupt was limited to an in¬ 
solvent trader, and such traders were on 
a different footing from other insolvent 
persons, the latter not getting the same 
legal relief from their debts. In all civil¬ 
ized communities laws have been passed 
regarding bankruptcy. At present bank- 



Banks 


Bann 


ruptcy in England is regulated by the 
Bankruptcy Act of 1883, which has as 
its essential feature the intervention of 
the Board of Trade at all stages of the 
bankruptcy, with the object of obtaining 
full official supervision and control. 

Though imprisonment for debt has 
been abolished, fraudulent bankrupts may 
be punished, and the conduct of prosecu¬ 
tions for offenses arising out of any 
bankruptcy proceeding falls to the public 
prosecutor. The estates of persons dying 
insolvent may be administered according 
to the law of bankruptcy. 

In the United States, by an act ap¬ 
proved July 1, 1898, a national Bank¬ 
ruptcy Law is in effect. It much resem¬ 
bles the English law’, except that referees 
are substituted for receivers and are ap¬ 
pointed by the court having jurisdiction 
in the district. All U. S. District Courts 
are constituted Courts of Bankruptcy. 
A person may file a petition for volun¬ 
tary bankruptcy, if his debts amount to 
one thousand dollars. Creditors may file 
a petition for involuntary bankruptcy 
against a debtor and on the latter rests 
the onus of defense in proving his sol¬ 
vency. In such a case the debtor can 
claim the right of a trial by jury. The 
referee shall declare dividends and fur¬ 
nish lists to whom such are payable, to 
the trustee, the latter having possession 
of the estate in liquidation and being 
also a court appointee. Meetings of 
creditors are to be called by the court to 
be held in not less than 10 nor more than 
30 days after adjudication, and at which 
meeting the bankrupt shall be present. 
Banks SlR JoSEPH > a distinguished 
* naturalist, born at London in 
1743. After studying at Harrow and 
Eton he went to Oxford in 1760, and 
formed there amongst his fellow-under¬ 
graduates a voluntary class in botany, 
etc. He was chosen a member of the 
Royal Society in 1766, and soon after 
went to Newfoundland and Hudson 
Bay to collect plants. In 1768, with 
Dr. Solander, a Swedish gentleman, pupil 
of Linnaeus, and then assistant librarian 
at the British Museum, he accompanied 
Cook’s expedition as naturalist. In 1772 
he visited Iceland along with Dr. Solan¬ 
der, and during this voyage the Hebrides 
were examined, and the columnar forma¬ 
tion of the rocks of Staffa first made 
known to naturalists. In 1777 Banks 
was chosen president of the Royal So¬ 
ciety, in 1781 w^as made a baronet, and 
in 1795 received the order of the Bath. 
He # wrote only essays, papers for learned 
societies, and short treatises. He died 
1820, and bequeathed his collections to 
the British Museum. 


•Ro-nVc Thomas, an English sculptor, 

JDcin^b, born in 1735> died in 1805 He 

studied sculpture in the Royal Academy, 
and in Italy, wffiere he executed several 
excellent pieces, particularly a bas-relief 
representing Garactacus brought prisoner 
to Rome , and a Cupid catching a Butter¬ 
fly, the latter work being afterwards pur¬ 
chased by the Empress Catharine. On 
leaving Italy he spent two unsatisfactory 
years in Russia, and then returned to 
England, wffiere he was soon after made 
an academician. Among his other works 
was a colossal statue of Achilles Mourn¬ 
ing the Loss of Briseis , in the hall of the 
British Institution, and the monument of 
Sir Eyre Coote in Westminster Abbey. 
Banks Nathaniel Prentiss, soldier 
’ and statesman, born at Wal¬ 
tham. Massachusetts, in 1816. Elected to 
the State legislature in 1849 and to Con¬ 
gress in 1852, he was made speaker of 
the House in 1856, and elected governor 
of Massachusetts in 1857, being twice re¬ 
elected. In 1861 he was made major- 
general of volunteers in the Civil War, 
and in 1862 was appointed commander 
of the Department of the Gulf. He cap¬ 
tured Port Hudson in 1863, but an ex¬ 
pedition against Shreveport, on the Red 
River, in 1864, proved a failure. He w’as 
subsequently a member of Congress from 
1865 to 1877. He died in 1894. 

Banksia ( bank ' si ' a )> a genus of the 
Proteacece, an Australian 
order of plants, named in honor of Sir 
Joseph Banks. While chiefly shrubs, a 
few species are small trees. They have 
hard, dry leaves, white or very pale 
green beneath, while the branches bear 
at their ends oblong heads of flowers, 
grouped in great numbers, and secreting 
much honey. They are abundant in all 
parts of Australia, called there Honey¬ 
suckle trees, and forming a characteristic 
feature of the vegetation. 

Bankston (bank'si-an) Pine ( Pinus 
.DcUIKMcUl hanksigna)f a North Amer _ 

ican species growing around Hudson 
Bay, about 25 feet high. 

Banks'ring. See Banxring. 

Banknva (ban-kS'ra). a town of Bengal, 
a on the Dhalkisor river, healthy 
and with a considerable trade. Pop. 
about 20,000. 

Bann Upper and Lower, two rivers in 
J the N. of Ireland, the former rising 
in the mountains of Mourne, County 
Down, and after flowing 38 miles in a n. 
direction, falling into Lough Neagh, the 
latter being the outlet of Lough Neagh, 
and falling into the Atlantic Ocean 4 
miles below Coleraine, after a course of 
nearly 40 miles. 



Banner 


Banyan 


Ban'ner a p* ece drapery, usually 
xiaii cx, b ear i U g some warlike or her¬ 
aldic device or national emblem, attached 
to the upper part of a pole or staff, and 
indicative of dignity, rank, or command. 
Heraldically it is a square or quadran¬ 
gular flag which varies in size with the 
rank of its possessor; and it is sometimes 
used specifically to denote an ensign, the 
attached edge of which is maintained in 
a horizontal position, as distinguished 
from the flag, which is fastened vertically 
to an upright. 

"Rannprpf (ban'er-et), formerly, in Eng- 
Dd iiiicici; land, a knight made on the 
field of battle as a reward for bravery, 
with the ceremony of cutting off the point 
of his pennon and making it a banner. 
HannnrV (ban'ok), a cake made of oat- 
uciimucis. meal> barleymeal, or pease- 

meal baked on an iron plate or griddle 
over the fire. From a supposed resem¬ 
blance the turbot is sometimes called in 
Scotland the Bannock-fluke. 

■R a n rmrkhurn (ban'ok-burn), a village 
JjanilOCJiUUlIl of Scotland, in Stir¬ 
lingshire, 2 miles s. e. of Stirling, famous 
for the decisive battle in which King 
Robert Bruce of Scotland defeated Ed¬ 
ward II of England, on the 24th June, 
1314. It has manufactures of woolens, 
such as tartans, carpets, etc. Pop. 3374. 

Banns of Matrimony,P^ bIi t c h ° ot \ c n e . 

tended celebration of a marriage giverf 
either by proclamation, viva voce, by a 
clergyman, session-clerk, or precentor in 
some religious assembly, or by posting up 
written notice in some public place. 

"Rfl Tl Till (bun'no), a district in the Punjab, 
xjctiiiiu Hindustan, on the northwestern 

frontier; area, 3868 miles; pop. 372,000, 
of whom nearly half are Afghans. 
■RonmiP-M-a (bang-ketO, in fortification, 
JD lie 11C the e i e vation of earth behind 

a parapet, on which the garrison or de¬ 
fenders may stand. The height of the 
parapet above the banquette is usually 
about 4 feet 6 inches; the breadth of the 
banquette from 2% or 3 feet to 4 or 6 
feet according to the number of ranks to 
occupy it. It is frequently made double, 
that is, a second is made still lower. 

Bans. See Banns. 

■Rancli pp (ban'she), Benshi', a phantom 
DcUiMice hag believed in Ireland and 

some parts of Scotland to attach herself 
to a particular house, and to appear or 
make her presence known by wailing be¬ 
fore the death of one of the family. 
TOan'+am a residency occupying the 
Ddii whole of the w. end of the 

island of Java. It formed an independ¬ 


ent kingdom, governed by its own sul¬ 
tan, till 1683, and the Dutch exercised 
suzerainty with brief intermission until 
its formal incorporation by them at the 
beginning of the last century. It pro¬ 
duces rice, coffee, sugar, cinnamon, etc. 
Serang is its capital. The town Bantam 
was the first Dutch settlement in Java 
(1595), and for some time their prin¬ 
cipal mart, though now greatly decayed. 
"Ran'tarn "Fnivl a small but spirited 

i5an xam ± owl, breed of db ^ estic 

fowl, first brought from the East Indies, 
supposed to derive its name from Ban¬ 
tam in Java. Most of the subvarieties 
have feathered legs; but these are not to 
be preferred. In point of color the black 
and nankeen varieties are the most de¬ 
sired. A well-bred bantam does not 
weigh more than a pound. 

"Rflnfpnp’ (ban-teng'; Bos Banteng or 
& Sondaicus), a wild species 
of ox, native of Java and Borneo, having 
a black body, slender white legs, short 
sleek hair, sharp muzzle and the back 
humped behind the neck. 

Banting System, ^ 0 u U cing 0£dl suU°r- 

fluous fat, adopted and recommended in 
1863 by W. Banting, of London. The 
dietary recommended was the use of 
butcher-meat principally, and abstinence 
from beer, farinaceous food, and vege¬ 
tables. 

"Ran'frv a small seaport town near the 
.uciii il y, head Qf Bantry Bay> county 

Cork, Ireland.—The bay, one of three 
large inlets at the s. w. extremity of Ire¬ 
land, affords an unsurpassed anchorage, 
and is about 25 miles long by 4 to 6 
broad, and from 10 to 40 fathoms deep, 
with no dangerous rocks or shoals. 
Bantu (ban-to'), the ethnological name 
of a group of African races be¬ 
low about 6° n. latitude, and including 
the Kaffirs, Zulus, Bechuanas, the tribes 
of the Loango, Congo, etc., but not the 
Hottentots. 

Bauxrinp* (banks'ring; genus Tu- 
xjaiiAiing paia), a quadruped be¬ 
longing to the Insectivora, inhabiting the 
Indian Archipelago, bearing some resem¬ 
blance externally to a squirrel, but hav¬ 
ing a long, pointed snout. It lives 
among trees, which it ascends with great 
agility. 

"Ran'van or Ban'ian ( Ficus Indica), 
y 9 a tree of India, of the fig 
genus. A remarkable characteristic of 
this tree is its method of throwing out 
from the horizontal branches supports 
which take root as soon as they reach the 
ground, enlarge into trunks, and, extend¬ 
ing branches in their turn, in time cover 
a prodigious extent of ground. A cele- 



Baobab 


Baptism 


brated banyan-tree has been known to 
shelter 7000 men beneath its shade. The 
wood is soft and porous, and from its 
white glutinous juice bird-lime is some¬ 
times prepared. Both juice and bark are 
regarded by the Hindus as valuable 
medicines. 

TJonhab (ba'o-bab; Adansonia digitd' 
jjciuuau fa * or monkey-bread Tree, a 

tree belonging to the natural order (or 
suborder) Bombacese, and the only 
known species of its genus, which was 
named after the naturalist Adanson. It 
is one of the largest of trees, its trunk 
sometimes attaining a diameter of 30 
feet; and as the profusion of leaves and 
drooping boughs sometimes almost hides 
the stem, the whole forms a hemispher¬ 
ical mass of verdure 140 to 150 ft. in 
diameter and 60 to 70 ft. high. It is a 
native of Western Africa, and is found 
also in Abyssinia; it is cultivated in 
many of the warmer parts of the world. 
The roots are of extraordinary length, a 
tree 77 feet in girth having a tap-root 
110 feet in length. The leaves are deep 
green, divided into five unequal parts 
lanceolate in shape, and radiating from a 
common center. The flowers resemble 



Baobab Tree (Adansonia digitdta). 

the white poppy, having snowy petals 
and violet-colored stamens; and the fruit, 
which is large and of an oblong shape, 
is said to taste like gingerbread, with a 
pleasant acid flavor. The wood is pale- 
colored, light, and soft. The tree is liable 
to be . attacked by a fungus, which, 
vegetating in the woody part, renders it 
soft and pithlike. By the negroes of the 
west coast these trunks are hollowed 
into chambers, and dead bodies are sus¬ 
pended in them. There they become per¬ 
fectly dry and well preserved, without 
further preparation or embalming. The 
baobab is emollient and mucilaginous; the 
pulverized leaves constitute lalo, which 
the natives mix with their daily food to 


diminish excessive perspiration, and which 
has been used by Europeans in fevers 
and diarrhoeas. The expressed juice of 
the fruit is used as a cooling drink in 
putrid fevers, and also as a seasoning for 
various foods. 

'Rn-nTinmpf (baf'6-met), the imaginary 

i>dpiiuiiiei idol or symbol which the 

Templars were accused of employing in 
their mysterious rites, and of which little 
or nothing is known. 

■Ra-n+icm (bap'tizm; from the Greek 
■r baptizo, from bapto, to im¬ 

merse or dip), a rite which is generally 
thought to have been usual with the 
Jews even before Christ, being adminis¬ 
tered to proselytes. From this baptism, 
however, that of St. John the Baptist 
differed, because he baptized Jews also as 
a symbol of the necessity of perfect puri¬ 
fication from sin. Christ himself never 
baptized, but directed his disciples to ad¬ 
minister this rite to converts (Matt., 
xxviii, 19) ; and baptism, therefore, be¬ 
came a religious ceremony among Chris¬ 
tians, taking rank as a sacrament with 
all sects which acknowledge sacraments. 
In the primitive church the person to be 
baptized was dipped in a river or in a 
vessel, with the words which Christ had 
ordered, generally adopting a new name 
more fully to express the change. Sprink¬ 
ling, or, as it w T as termed, clinic baptism, 
was used only in the case of the sick 
.who could not leave their beds. The 
Greek Church and Eastern schismatics 
retained the custom of immersion; but 
the Western Church adopted or allowed 
the mode of baptism by pouring or 
sprinkling, since continued by many 
Protestants. This practice can be 
traced back certainly to the third cen¬ 
tury, before which its existence is dis¬ 
puted. Since the Reformation there have 
been various Protestant sects called Bap¬ 
tists, holding that baptism should be ad¬ 
ministered only by immersion, and to 
those who can make a personal profes¬ 
sion of faith. The Montanists in Africa 
baptized even the dead, and in Roman 
Catholic countries the practice of bap¬ 
tizing church-bells—a custom of tenth- 
century origin—continues to this day. 
Being an initiatory rite, baptism is only 
administered once to the same person. 
The Roman and Greek Catholics con¬ 
secrate the water.of baptism, but Prot¬ 
estants dp not. The act of baptism is 
accompanied only with the formula that 
the person is baptized in the name of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but, among 
most Christians, it is preceded by a con¬ 
fession of faith made by the person to be 
baptized if an adult, and by his parents 
or sponsors if he be a child. The Roman 





Baptistery 


Baptists 


Catholic form of baptism is far more 
elaborate than the Protestant. This 
church teaches that all adults not bap¬ 
tized are damned, even unbaptized in¬ 
fants are not admitted into heaven ; but 
for those with whom the absence of bap¬ 
tism was the chief fault, even St. Augus¬ 
tine himself believed in a species of miti¬ 
gated damnation. Protestants hold that 
though the neglect of the sacrament is a 
sin, yet the saving new birth may be 
found without the performance of the 
rite which symbolizes it. Naming the 
person baptized forms no essential part 
of the ceremony, but has become almost 
universal, probably from the ancient cus¬ 
tom of renaming the catechumen. 

Bantisterv (bap-tis'ter-i), a building 
-oaiJLi&LCiy or a portiou of a building 

in w r hich is administered the rite of bap¬ 
tism. In the early Christian Church the 
baptistery was distinct from the basilica 
or church, but was situated near its west 
end, and was generally circular or oc¬ 
tagonal in form, and dome-roofed. About 
the end of the sixth century the baptistery 
began to be absorbed into the church, the 
font being placed within and not far 
from the western door. Some detached 
baptisteries still remain in use, as those 
of St. John Lateran, Rome, at Pisa, 
Parma, Ravenna, Florence, etc., that of 
Florence being 108 feet in diameter ex¬ 
ternally, and richly decorated. Baptis¬ 
teries were dedicated to St. John the 
Baptist. 

■Ra-nt-idts (bap'tists), a Protestant relig- 

lists iQug gect ^ distinguished by 


their opinions respecting the mode and 
subjects of baptism. With regard to the 
mode, they maintain the necessity of im¬ 
mersion, and with regard to the sub¬ 
jects, they consider that baptism ought 
not to be administered to children at all, 
nor to adults in general, but to those only 
who profess repentance and faith. They 
are sometimes called Antipccdolaptists, 
to express their variance from those who 
defend infant baptism and who are called 
Pcedobaptists. Apart from the special 
sect of that name, Baptists are to be 
found equally among Calvinists and 
Arminians, Trinitarians and Unitarians. 
The Baptists as a whole adopt the Inde¬ 
pendent or Congregational form of church 
government, and their ecclesiastical as¬ 
semblies are held for the purpose of mu¬ 
tual stimulus and intercourse, and not for 
the general government of the body, or for 
interference with individual churches. 
The Particular Baptists of England (so 
called from believing that Christ died 
only for the elect), the Baptists of Scot¬ 
land and Ireland, the Associated Baptists 
of America, and some of the Seventh- 


day Baptists are Calvinistic. The othei^ 
classes, such as the General Baptists 
(who believe that Christ died for all), 
are Arminian, or at least not Calvinistic. 
Most Baptists profess to be Trinitarians. 
The Free-will Baptists, the Christian 
Society, and most of the General Bap¬ 
tists of England, admit of open com¬ 
munion : the other bodies decline commu¬ 
nion with any Christians but Baptists. 
The Associated or Calvinistic Baptists 
long ranked in the United States as the 
most numerous denomination of Christ¬ 
ians, though they appear now to be out¬ 
stripped by the Methodists, especially if 
the latter are considered as one great 
sect, and not rather as a mere aggregate 
of different sects. The Seventh-day 
Baptists, or Sabbatarians, observe the 
seventh day of the week. The Free-will 
Baptists profess the doctrine of free sal¬ 
vation. The Anabaptists of the Reforma¬ 
tion period are not to be confounded with 
the Baptists, by whom their principles 
were expressly disclaimed. The first 
regular Baptist church appears to have 
been formed in the reign of Elizabeth, 
but we may date their first public ac¬ 
knowledgment as distinct from the 
Anabaptists from their petition to Parlia¬ 
ment in 1620. The year 1633 provides 
the earliest record of the formation of a 
Particular Baptist church in London. In 
1689 a Baptist General Assembly, held 
in London, formulated a confession of 
thirty-two articles and a catechism. The 
Baptist Union formed in 1832 compre¬ 
hends the greater number of members of 
the sect in Great Britain and Ireland, 
who are far less numerous than in the 
United States, where, in addition to the 
Regular Baptists, there are numerous 
minor divisions. In the United States 
there are three bodies of Regular Bap¬ 
tists, the northern, southern, and colored. 
They are not separated by virtue of doc¬ 
trinal or ecclesiastical differences; but 
each has its own associations, state con¬ 
ventions, and general missionary and 
other organizations. The question of 
slavery divided the Baptists of the north¬ 
ern and southern States, culminating in 
1845. The Regular Baptists accept the 
Bible as the only rule of faith and prac¬ 
tice. There are two general confessions 
of faith—the Philadelphia and the New 
Hampshire confession. The northern 
Baptists number about 1,180,000 com¬ 
municants, with 9250 churches. The 
southern Baptists have now over 21,000 
churches with a membership of more 
than 2,000,000. The colored Baptists 
number about 1,900,000 communicants, 
in 15 southern States and District of Co¬ 
lumbia. The Primitive Baptists are so 



Baraboo 


Barbarossa 


called because of their opposition to the 
establishment of Sunday-schools, mission, 
Bible, and other societies. The total of 
members (1910) is about 100,000. The 
Old Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian 
Baptists are strongly Calvinistic, holding 
to the doctrine of predestination. The 
phrase ‘ Two Seed ’ indicates their belief 
that there are two seeds, one of death 
and one of life. They are opposed to a 
paid ministry. They are very few in 
number. The General Baptists hold that 
the atonement of Christ was general, not 
particular—that is, for the whole race, 
and not simply for those effectually 
called. The original Free-will Baptists 
hold to the doctrine of the freedom of the 
will; that those * ordained to condemna¬ 
tion ’ will not repent and believe the 
gospel. The Free-will Baptists believe in 
open communion, and that the human 
will is ‘ free and self-determined, having 
power to yield to gracious influences and 
live, or resist them and perish.’ In ad¬ 
dition may be named the Six-Principle, 
Seventh-Day, United, Separate, Free, 
Church of Christ, and Church of God 
and Saints of Christ Baptists, also United 
Brethren, Dunkers, and Mennonites, 
ranging from a few hundreds each to 
70,000 in number of members. 

Barflboo (bar'a-bo), a city of Wis- 
.ucticiuuu consin> capital of Sauk Com 

37 miles n. w. of Madison. It has 
woolen factories, railroad shops, etc. 
Pop. 0324. 


Baraguey-d’Hilliers ^ r LoTjra 6l a 

distinguished French general under the 
first empire, born in Paris 1764. He 
served in the army of Italy, and in Egypt, 
Germany, and Spain ; and in the Russian 
campaign of 1812 commanded a division. 
He was entrusted with the direction of 
the vanguard in the retreat, but w r as com¬ 
pelled to capitulate. Napoleon ordered 
him to return to France as under arrest, 
but he died at Berlin on the way, 
Jan. 6, 1813. 


Barbadoes,^ Barbados (bar-ba'dos), 
9 the most eastern of the 
West India Islands, first mentioned in 
1518, and occupied by the British in 1625. 
Length 21 miles, breadth 13; area, 106,- 
4<0 acres or 166 sq. miles; mostly under 
cultivation. It is divided into eleven 
Church of England parishes; capital, 
Bridgetown. It is more densely peopled 
than almost any spot in the world, the 
population now being about 200,000 or 
about.1200 to the square mile. The cli¬ 
mate is very hot, though moderated bv the 
constant trade-winds; and the island is 
subject to dreadful hurricanes. The sur¬ 
face is broken, now without forests, and 


with few streams; the highest point is 
1104 feet above the sea-level. There is a 
thick surface deposit of coral rock and the 
island is evidently an uplifted coral reef. 
There are few indigenous mammals or 
birds. The black lowland soil gives 
great returns of sugar in favorable sea¬ 
sons. The chief exports, besides sugar, 
are molasses and rum; imports: rice, salt 
meat, corn, butter, flour, etc. Barbadoes 
has a considerable transit trade, being in 
some measure the central mart for all 
the Windward Islands. It is the see of 
a bishop and the headquarters of the 
British forces in the West Indies. There 
is a railway across the island, also street¬ 
cars, telephones, etc. The island forms 
a distinct government under a governor, 
an executive and a legislative council, 
and a house of assembly. Liberal pro¬ 
vision is made for education both by old 
foundations and by annual vote. 

Barbadoes Cherry, 

of Malpighia urens, a West Indian tree 
15 ft. high. 

Barbadoes Gooseberry, *f e perel- 

kia aculeata , a West Indian species of 
cactus. 


Barbadoes Leg, a . fori ?.°^ ele p£ an tia- 

07 sis chiefly affecting 

the legs. 

"Rnrhnra (bar'ba-ra), St., according to 
a the legend, belonged to Nico- 
media, in Asia Minor, and was beheaded 
by her father for having become a Chris¬ 
tian, he being immediately thereafter 
struck dead by lightning. She is invoked 
in storms, and is considered the patron 
saint of artillerists. 

Barbarelli ( bar -ba'rel-i). See Gtor- 

gione. 

Barbarian ( bar-ba'd-M ; Greek, lar- 

oaros ), a name given by 
the Greeks, and afterwards by the Romans, 
to every one who spoke an* unintelligible 
language; and hence coming to connote 
the idea of rude, illiterate, uncivilized. 
This word, therefore, did not always con¬ 
vey the idea of something odious or 
savage; thus Plautus calls Naevius a bar¬ 
barous poet, because he had not written 
in Greek; and Cicero terms illiterate 
persons without taste 4 barbarians.* 

Barbarossa ( ^ ar '5 a " ros ' a: Italian > ‘ red - 

beard ), a surname given 
to Frederick I of Germany. 

Barbarossa £ red - beard ’)>the name of 

two famous Turkish cor¬ 
sairs of the sixteenth century, who 
ravaged the shores of the Mediterranean 
and established themselves in Algiers 
The elder of the brothers, Aruch or 



Barbary 


Barberini 


Horuk, was killed in 1518; the younger 
and more notorious, Hayraddin, who cap¬ 
tured Tunis, died in 1546. 

'Rarharv (bar'ba-ri), a general name for 
uai ua y ttie most northerly portion of 

Africa, extending about 2600 miles from 
Egypt to the Atlantic, with a breadth 
varying from about 140 to 550 miles; 
comprising Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, 
and Tripoli (including Barca and Fez- 
zan). The principal races are: the Ber¬ 
bers, the original inhabitants, from whom 
the country takes its name; the Arabs, 
who conquered an extensive portion of it 
during the times of the caliphs; the 
Bedouins, Jews, Turks, and the French 
colonists of Algeria, etc. The country, 
which w r as prosperous under the Cartha¬ 
ginians, was, next to Egypt, the richest 
of the Roman provinces, and the Italian 
states enriched themselves by their inter¬ 
course with it. In the fifteenth century, 
however, it became infested with adven¬ 
turers who made the name of Barbary 
corsair a terror to commerce, a condi¬ 
tion of things finally removed by the re¬ 
sistance of the American fleets and the 
French occupation of Algeria. 

Harharv A (Inuus ecaudatus ), a 

udiudiy xipe species of ape> or tail _ 

less monkey, with greenish-brown hair, of 
the size of a large cat, remarkable for 
docility; also called the magot. It is 
common in Barbary and other parts of 
Africa, and some used to live formerly 
on Gibraltar Rock, being the only Eu¬ 
ropean monkey, though probably not in¬ 
digenous. It has been the ‘ showman’s 
ape ’ from time immemorial. 

"Ro r Rr, pi Barbastelle (bar'bas-tel), 

uaroastei, a batwith hairylips ( Bar . 

bastellus communis), a native of England. 

Barbastro (bar ‘ ba / tr . 0) ’ a cityof Ara : 

gon, Spain, province of 
Huesca, 50 miles N. e. of Saragossa, with 
an interesting cathedral, and some trade 
and manufactures. Pop. 7033. 
■Rnv'hflnlf] ( Fr - P ron - bar-bo'), Anna 

X>CU UdUiu LetitiA) an English poet 
and general writer, was born in Leicester¬ 
shire 1743, daughter of a Presbyterian 
minister named Aikin. In 1774 she mar¬ 
ried the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld. Her 
Early Lessons and Hymns for Children, 
and various essays and poems, won con¬ 
siderable popularity. She edited a collec¬ 
tion of English novels, with critical and 
biographical notices, and some other 
works. Her last long poem, Eighteen 
Hundred and Eleven, appeared in 1812. 
She died at Stoke-Newington, 1825. 

"RarViPPUP (b&r'be-ku), a word of West 
.Dcti uciuc Indian origin, meaning a hog, 

or other large animal, roasted whole. 
25—1 


■Ro-pLpl (bar'bel), a genus ( Barbus ) of 
1 fresh-water fishes of the carp 
family, distinguished by the four fleshy 
filaments growing from the lips, two at 
the nose and one at each corner of the 
mouth, forming the kind of beard to 
which the genus owes its name. Of the 
several species the European Barbus 
vulgaris, common in most rivers, has an 



Barbel (Barbus vulgaris). 


average length of from 12 to 18 inches, 
and in form and habits strongly resem¬ 
bles the pike. Its body is elongated and 
rounded, olive-colored above and bluish 
on the sides, and covered with small 
scales. The upper jaw, which is much 
longer than the lower, forms a snout, 
with which it bores into the mud for 
worms, insects, aquatic plants, etc. It 
weighs from 9 to 20 pounds. It gives 
good sport to the angler, but its flesh is 
very coarse, and at the time of spawning 
the roe is dangerous to eat. 

"Rarhpr one whose occupation is to 
a ’ shave or trim the beard and 
to cut and dress hair. The practice of 
surgery was formerly a part of the craft, 
and by an act of Henry VIII, the Com¬ 
pany of Barbers was incorporated with 
the Company of Surgeons—the company 
being then known as the Barber-surgeons 
—with the limitation, however, that the 
surgeons were not to shave or practise 
‘ barbery,’ and the barbers were to per¬ 
form no higher surgical operation than 
blood-letting and tooth-drawing. This 
continued till the time of George II. The 
signs of the old profession—the pole 
which the patient grasped, its spiral 
decoration in imitation of the bandage, 
and the basin to catch the blood—are 
still sometimes retained. The barbers’ 
shops, always notorious for gossip, were 
in some measure the news-centers of 
classic and mediaeval times. 


"Rflrhprim* (bar-be-re'ne), a celebrated 
.Deli uc± ini Eiorentine family, which, 

since the pontificate of Maffeo Barberini 
(Urban VIII, 1623 to 1644), has oc¬ 
cupied a distinguished place among the 
nobility of Rome. During his reign he 
seemed chiefly intent on the aggrandize¬ 
ment of his three nephews, of whom two 






Barberry 


Barbour 


were appointed cardinals, and the third 
Prince of Palestrina. 

Barberrv (bar'ber-i), a genus of shrubs, 
order Berberidacese, the com¬ 
mon barberry ( Bcrberis vulgaris) having 
bunches of small beautiful red berries, 
somewhat oval; serrated and pointed 
leaves; thorns, three together, upon the 
branches; and hanging clusters of yellow 
flowers. The berries nearly approach the 
tamarind in respect of acidity, and when 
boiled with sugar make an agreeable pre¬ 
serve, rob, or jelly. They are also used 
as a dry sweetmeat, and in sugar-plums 
or comfits ; are pickled with vinegar, and 
are used for the garnishing of dishes. 
The bark is said to have medicinal proper¬ 
ties, and the inner bark and roots with 
alum yield a fine yellow dye. The shrub 
was originally a native of eastern coun¬ 
tries, but it is now generally diffused in 
Europe, as also in North America. In 
England it has been almost universally 
banished from hedgerows, from the be¬ 
lief that it causes rust on corn—a sup¬ 
position supported by the fact that it is 
subject itself to attacks of a sort of 
epiphyte. Numerous other species be¬ 
long to Asia and America. 

Barberton (barWtun), the chief 

mining center of De 
Kaap gold fields, Transvaal, about 80 
miles from Lydenburg, and 150 to 1G0 
from Delagoa Bay. It had formerly a 
pop. of about 7000, but the opening of 
the Rand mines has caused its decline to 
about 2000. 

Barbet (bar'bet), a family ( bucco - 
nidw) of climbing birds with a 
thick, conical beak, having tufts of 
bristles at its base. Their wings are 
short and their flight somewhat heavy. 
They have been divided into three sub¬ 
genera:—The barbicans ( Pogonias ), in¬ 
habiting India and Africa, and feeding 
chiefly on fruit; the barbets proper 
(Bucco), found in Africa and America, 
and nearly related to the woodpeckers; 
and the puff-birds ( Tamatia ), inhabit¬ 
ing America and feeding on insects. The 
name is given also to a kind of poodle 
dog. 

Barbette (bar-bet'), an elevation of 
earth behind the breastwork 
of a fortification, from which the artillery 
may be fired over the parapet instead of 
through an embrasure. A barbette car¬ 
riage is a carriage which elevates a gun 
sufficiently high to permit its being fired 
over the parapet. 

Barbeyrac (bar-ba-rak), Jean, an 

. . J able French writer on 

jurisprudence and natural law, trans¬ 
lator of Grotius and Cumberland, and 
translator and annotater of Puffendorf 


Born 1674; professor of law at Lausanne 
and Groningen; died 1744. 

Barbican. See Barbacan. 

Barbie du Bocage j“ 

Denis, a distinguished geographer, born 
in Paris in 1760, who laid the foundation 
of his fame in 1788 by his Atlas to 
Barthelemy’s Voyage du Jeune Ana- 
char sis. His maps and plans to the 
works of Thucydides, Xenophon, etc., ex¬ 
hibit much erudition, and materially ad¬ 
vanced the science of ancient geography. 
He also prepared many modern maps, 
and published various excellent disserta¬ 
tions. He held many honorable posts, 
and died in 1825. 

Barbier (barb-ya), Antoine Alexan¬ 
dre, French librarian, born 
in 1765. He was appointed keeper of the 
library of the Conseil d'fitat in 1798; 
Napoleon made him his librarian in 1807; 
and he was afterwards librarian to Louis 
XVIII. His Catalogue de la Bibliothe- 
que du Conseil d'fitat (1801-3), and a 
Dictionnaire des Outrages Anonymes et 
Pseudonymes (1806-9), are both valu¬ 
able works. He died in 1825. 
Barhipri (bar-be-a're), Giovanni 
Francesco, otherwise known 
as Guercino (the squinter) da Cento, an 
eminent and prolific historical painter, 
born near Bologna 1590; died in 1666. 
His style showed the influence of Cara¬ 
vaggio and of the Caracci, his best work 
being of the latter school. Chief work, a 
St. Petronilla in the Capitol at Rome; 
but most of the large galleries have pic¬ 
tures by him. —Paolo Antonio Bar- 
bieri, a celebrated still-life and animal 
painter, was a brother of Guercino; born 
1596, died 1640. 

Barbour (bar'bur), John, an ancient 
Scottish poet, contemporary 
with Chaucer, born about 1316. By 1357 
he was archdeacon of Aberdeen, and in 
the following year was appointed a com¬ 
missioner to treat for the ransom of 
David II. He appears as auditor of the 
exchequer oftener than once, as traveling 
through England on several occasions, 
and w T as pensioned by Robert II. His 
chief poem, The Bruce, written about 
1375, was first published in 1571, and a 
MS. exists in the Advocates’ Library, 
Edinburgh, dated 1489. Of another long 
poem, setting forth the Trojan origin of 
the Scottish kings, no MS. remains, un¬ 
less a portion of two Troy books in the 
Cambridge and Bodleian libraries may be 
ascribed to Barbour. He has also been 
credited, probably without sufficient 
grounds, with having compiled a Book of 
Legends of Saints , existing in a single 



Barbuda 


Barclay 


MS. at Cambridge, and published only in 
recent times. He died in 1395. He was 
the father of Scottish poetry and history, 
and his Bruce is linguistically of high 
value. Though wanting in the higher 
qualities of poetry, it is truthful and 
natural, and often exhibits a high moral 
dignity. 

Barhiiria (bar-bo'da), one of the West 
■ D<xl uuua j n( jj eS) an nexed by Britain in 

1628; about 15 miles long and 8 wide ; 
lying north of Antigua ; pop. 775. It is 
flat, fertile, and healthy. Corn, cotton, 
pepper, and tobacco are the principal 
produce, but the island is only partially 
cleared for cultivation. There is no har¬ 
bor, but a well-sheltered roadstead on the 
w. side. It is a dependency of Antigua, 
and its population consists mostly of 
negroes chiefly engaged in cattle raising. 
Barhv (bar'be), a German town on the 
■ uai U J Elbe, in the government of Mag¬ 
deburg, with an old castle. Pop. 5137. 
'Drj r po (oar'ka), a division of N. Africa, 
a between the Gulf of Sidra and 
Egypt, a vilayet of the Turkish Empire, 
capital Bengazi. It formed a portion of 
the ancient Cyrenaica, and from the time 
of the Ptolemies was known as Pentapolis 
from its five Greek cities. The country 
forms mostly a rocky plateau. A large 
portion of it is desert, but some parts, 
especially near the coast, are fertile, and 
yield abundant crops and excellent pas¬ 
ture, the chief being wheat, barley, dates, 
figs, and olives. Flowering shrubs, roses, 
honeysuckles, etc., occur in great variety. 
There are hardly any permanent streams, 
but the eastern portion is tolerably well 
watered by rains and springs. The ex¬ 
ports are grain and cattle, with ostrich 
feathers and ivory from the interior. 
Next to Bengazi the seaport of Derna is 
the chief town. The pop. probably does 
not exceed 300,000. 

Barcarolle (Wrla-rsl) a species of 

song sung by the barca- 
nioli, or gondoliers of Venice, and hence 
applied to a song or melody composed in 
imitation. 

Barcellona (I J&r;cheI-o'n&>, a seaport 

of Sicily, province of Mes¬ 
sina, immediately contiguous upon Pozzo 
di Gotto, and practically forming one 
town with it. Joint pop. 15,925. 
"Rarpplnna (bar-thel-o'n&). one of the 
largest cities of Spain, chief 
town of the province of Barcelona, and 
formerly capital of the kingdom of Cata¬ 
lonia ; finely situated on the northern 
portion of the Spanish Mediterranean 
coast. It is divided into the upper and 
lower town ; the former modern, regular, 
stone-built, and often of an English ar¬ 
chitectural type, the latter old, irregular, 


brick-built, and with traces of Eastern 
influence in the architecture. The har¬ 
bor, though spacious, does not admit ves¬ 
sels of more than 12 ft. draught. The 
principal manufactures are cottons, silks, 
woolens, machinery, paper, glass, chem¬ 
icals, stoneware, soap; exports manu¬ 
factured goods, wine and brandy, fruit, 
oil, etc.; imports coal, textile fabrics, 
machinery, cotton, fish, hides, silks, tim¬ 
ber, etc. The city contains a university, 
several public libraries, a museum, a 
large arsenal, cannon foundry, etc. Bar¬ 
celona was, until the twelfth century, 
governed by its own counts, but was 
afterwards united with Aragon. In 1640. 
with the rest of Catalonia, it placed itself 
under the French crown ; in 1652 it sub¬ 
mitted again to the Spanish government; 
in 1697 it was taken by the French, but 
was restored to Spain at the Peace of 
Ryswick. It has had several severe 
visitations of cholera and yellow fever, 
and has been the scene of many serious 
and sanguinary revolts, as in 1836, 1840, 
and 1841. Population, 533,090. The 
province has an area of 2968 sq. m.; 
pop. 1,054,541. It is generally mountain¬ 
ous, but well cultivated, and among the 
most thickly peopled in Spain. 

a town of Venezuela, near 
the mouth of the Neveri, 
which is navigable for vessels of small 
size, but larger vessels anchor off the 
mouth of the river. Coal and salt are 
mined in the vicinity. Pop. about 10,000. 

Barrel on a Nuts hazel-nuts exported 
-DdlceiOlld 1M ULbj f rom the Barcelona 

district of Spain. 

Bar'rlav Alexander, a poet of the 
x>clA ^ 9 sixteenth century, most 

probably a native of Scotland, born about 
1475, for some years a priest and chap¬ 
lain of St. Mary Ottery, in Devonshire, 
afterwards a Benedictine monk of Ely, 
subsequently a Franciscan, and latterly 
the holder of one or two livings; died 
1552. His principal work was a satire, 
entitled The Shyp of Folys of. this 
Worlde, part translation and part imita¬ 
tion of Brandt’s Narrenschiff (‘ Ship of 
Fools’), and printed by Pynson in 1509. 
He also wrote a Myrrour of Good Maners, 
and some Egloges (Eclogues), both 
printed by Pynson, as well as transla¬ 
tions, etc. 

t) q y»a>1 o tt John, poet and satirist, son of 
DdL l/ld j, a Scotch father, born at Pont- 
a-Mousson (Lorraine), in 1582. and 
probably educated in the Jesuits’ College 
there. Having settled in England he 
published a Latin politico-satirical ro¬ 
mance, entitled Euphormionis Satyricon, 
having as its object the exposure of the 
Jesuits. In 1616 he left England for 


Barcelona, 



Barclay 


Bardesanes 


Rome, received a pension from Pope 
Paul V, and died in 1621. His chief 
work is a singular romance in Latin, en¬ 
titled Argenis (Paris, 1621), thought by 
some to be an allegory bearing on the 
political state of Europe at the period. 
It has been translated into several 
modern languages. 

"Rarrlnv Robert, the celebrated apolo- 
Vjiay , gist 0 f the Q Ua kers, born in 

1648, at Gordonstown, Moray, and edu¬ 
cated at Paris, where he became a Ro¬ 
man Catholic. Recalled home by his 
father, he followed the example of. the 
latter and became a Quaker. His first 
treatise in support of his adopted prin¬ 
ciples, published at Aberdeen in the year 
1670, under the title of Truth Cleared of 
Calumnies, together with his subsequent 
writings, did much to rectify public sen¬ 
timent in regard to the Quakers. His 
chief work, in Latin, An Apology for the 
True Christian Divinity, as the same is 
Preached and held forth by the People 
called, in scorn, Quakers, was soon re¬ 
printed at Amsterdam, and quickly 
translated into German, Dutch, French, 
and Spanish, and, by the author himself, 
into English. His fame was now widely 
diffused ; and, in his travels with William 
Penn and George Fox through England, 
Holland, and Germany, to spread the 
opinions of the Quakers, he was received 
everywhere with the highest respect. The 
last of his productions, On the Possi¬ 
bility and Necessity of an Inward and 
Immediate Revelation, was not published 
in England until 1686; from which time 
Barclay lived quietly with his family. 
He died, after a short illness, at his own 
house of Ury, Kincardineshire, in 1690. 
He was a friend of and had influence 
with James II. 

Barclay de Tolly, Michael,^Peince^ 

general and field-marshal of Russia, born 
in 1755. His family, of Scottish origin, 
had been established in Livonia since 
1689. He entered the army at twelve 
years of age, served in various cam¬ 
paigns against the Turks, Swedes, and 
Poles, and in 1811 was named minister 
of w r ar. On the invasion of Napoleon he 
was transferred to the chief command of 
the army, and adopted a plan of retreat; 
his forces did not greatly exceed 100,000 
men, but the court became impatient, and 
after the capture of Smolensk by the 
French he was superseded by Kutusoff. 
Sinking all personal feeling, he asked 
leave to serve under his successor, com¬ 
manded the right wing at the battle of 
the Moskwa, maintained his position, and 
covered the retreat of the rest of the 
army. After the battle of Bautzen, in 


1813, he was reappointed to the chief 
command, which he had soon after to 
resign to Prince Schwarzenberg. He 
forced the surrender of General Van- 
damme after the battle of Dresden, took 
part in the decisive battle of Leipzig, 
and was made a field-marshal in Paris. 
In 1815 he received from the emperor the 
title of prince, and from Louis XVIII 
the badge of the order of Military Merit. 
He died in 1818. 

-COChba (bar-ko/i'ba), Simon, a 
Jewish impostor, who pre¬ 
tended to be the Messiah, raised a 
revolt, and made himself master of Jeru¬ 
salem about 132 a.d., and of about fifty 
fortified places. Hadrian sent to Britain 
for Julius Severus, one of his ablest 
generals, wdio gradually regained the dif¬ 
ferent forts and then took and destroyed 
Jerusalem. Bar-cochba retired to a 
mountain fortress, and perished in the 
assault of it by the Romans three years 
after, about 135. 

Bar'coo. See Cooper's Creek. 

Ba rd one an or( ^ er among the ancient 
■ uaiu > Celtic tribes, whose occupation 
was to compose and sing verses in honor 
of the heroic achievements of princes and 
brave men, generally to the accompani¬ 
ment of the harp. Their verses also fre¬ 
quently embodied religious or ethical 
precepts, genealogies, laws, etc. Their 
existence and function was known to the 
Romans two centuries b. c. ; but of the 
Gallic bards only the tradition of their 
popularity survives. The first Welsh 
bards of whom anything is extant are 
Taliesin, Aneurin, and Llywarch, of the 
sixth century. A considerable lacuna 
then occurs in their history until the 
order was reconstituted in the tenth cen¬ 
tury by King Howel Dha, and again in 
the eleventh by Gryffith ap Conan. Ed¬ 
ward I is said to have hanged all the 
Welsh bards as promoters of sedition. 
Some attempts have been made in Wales 
for the revival of bardism, and the Cam¬ 
brian Society was formed in 1818 for 
this purpose and for the preservation of 
the remains of the ancient literature. 
The revived Eisteddfodan, or bardic 
festivals, have been so far exceedingly 
popular. In Ireland there were three 
classes of bards: those who sang of war, 
religion, etc., those who chanted the laws, 
and those who gave genealogies and 
family histories in verse. They were 
famous harpists. In the Highlands of 
Scotland there are considerable remains 
of compositions supposed to be those of 
their old bards. 

Bardesanes (bar-de'sa-nes) a Syrian 

Gnostic, who lived in the 



Bardwan 


Barge-board 


reign of Marcus Aurelius, in Edessa, and 
whose system of faith opens with the 
statement that from the union of God 
with matter sprang Christ and a female 
Holy Ghost, from whom in turn sprang 
various existences. He propagated his 
doctrines in Syrian hymns, the first in 
the language. His son, Harmonius, was 
also an able hymn-writer. The Bar- 
desanists maintained themselves till the 
fifth century. 

Tlardwan' or Burdwan', a division of 

uarawail ’ Bengal, upon the Hugli, 

comprising the six districts of Bardwan, 
Hugli, Howrah, Midnapur, Bankura, and 
Birbhum. Area, 13,855 sq. miles; pop. 
8,245,000.—The district Bardwan has an 
area of 2697 sq. miles, and a pop. of 
1,500,000. Apart from its products, rice, 
grain, hemp, cotton, indigo, etc., it has 
a noted coal-field of about 500 sq. miles 
in area, with an annual output of about 
half a million tons.—The town of Bard¬ 
wan has a fine palace of the maharajah 
and an extensive group of temples. Pop. 
about 35,000. 

■RavaVmnp or Barbone, Praise-God, 
Dell c UU ic, tlle name 0 f a leather seller 

in Fleet Street, London, who obtained a 
kind of lead in the convention which 
Cromwell substituted for the Long Par¬ 
liament, and which was thence nick¬ 
named the Barebone Parliament. After 
its dissolution he disappears till 1660, 
when he presented a petition to Parlia¬ 
ment against the restoration of the 
monarchy. In 1661 he was committed 
to the Tower for some time, but his sub¬ 
sequent history is unknown. 

Barefooted Friars, ““““went 

barefoot. They were not a distinct body, 
but may be found in several orders of 
mendicant friars—for example, among 
the Carmelites, Franciscans, Augustins. 
There were also barefooted nuns. 

"Rnrperp (ba-razh'), a light, open tis- 
jjaic & c sue of silk and worsted or 
cotton and worsted for women’s dresses, 
originally manufactured near Bareges. 
"Rarpcrpc (ba-razh), a watering-place, 
** s. of France, dep. Hautes- 

Pyrenees, about 4000 feet above the sea, 
celebrated for its thermal springs, which 
are frequented for rheumatism, scrofula, 
etc. The place is hardly inhabited ex¬ 
cept in the bathing season, June till 
September. 

Bareffine (b a ' r azh'in; from BarSges), 
® a gelatinous product of cer¬ 
tain algae growing in sulphuric mineral 
springs, and imparting to them the color 
and odor of flesh-broth. 

■Ro-pPillv (ba-ra'li), a town of Hin- 

dustaQ j n the N> W> p rov _ 


inces, capital of a district of same name, 
on a pleasant and elevated site. It has 
a fort and cantonments, a government 
college, and manufactures sword-cutlery, 
gold and silver lace, perfumery, furni¬ 
ture and upholstery. On the outbreak of 
the Indian mutiny the native garrison 
took possession of the place, but it was 
retaken by Lord Clyde in May, 1858. 
Pop. 131,208. The district has an area 
of 1595 sq. miles; pop. 1,040,000. 
'Rareritc (bar'ents), William, a 
d c Dutch navigator of the end 

of the sixteenth century, who, on an ex¬ 
pedition intended to reach China by the 
northeast passage, discovered Nova 
Zembla. He wintered there in 1596-97, 
and died before reaching home. 

■r q vp-H-i (ba-ret'te), Joseph, an Italian 
Dal cl 11 wr i ter> | 3 0rn a t Turin, 1716. 

In 1748 he came to England, and in 1753 
published in English a Defence of the 
Poetry of Italy against the Censures of 
M. Voltaire. In 1760 he brought out a 
useful Italian and English Dictionary. 
After an absence of six years, during 
part of which he edited the Frusta Let¬ 
ter aria (‘Literary Scourge’) at Venice, 
he returned to England, and in 1768 pub¬ 
lished an Account of the Manners and 
Customs of Italy. Not long after, in 
defending himself in a street brawl, he 
stabbed his assailant and was tried for 
murder at the Old Bailey, but acquitted ; 
Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, 
Reynolds, and Beauclerk giving testi¬ 
mony to his good character. An English 
and Spanish Dictionary and various 
other works, followed before his death 
in 1789. 

"Rarflpnr (bar-flewr), at one time the 
jjameux k egt port on ^ coast 0 f 

Normandy, and the reputed port from 
which William the Conqueror sailed to 
England. It was destroyed in the year 
1346 by Edward III. Present pop. about 
1000. 

■Rav-P-rncL' Barfurush'. Same as 
Darirubll , Balfroosh. 

Bargain and Sale, Ug* 

contract by which lands, tenements, etc., 
are transferred from one person to an¬ 
other. 

•D ar p*e (b&rj), a term similar in 
& origin to barque, but generally 
used of a flat-bottomed boat of some kind, 
whether used for loading and unloading 
vessels, or as a canal-boat, or as an or¬ 
namental boat of state or pleasure. 

Barsre-board (p erha P s a corruption 

° of verge-board), in ar¬ 

chitecture, a board generally pendent 
from the eaves of gables, so as to conceal 
the rafters, keep out rain, etc. They are 



Barham 


Baritone 


sometimes elaborately ornamented. The 
portion of the roof projecting from the 



Barge-board of the Fifteenth Century, Ockwells, 
Berkshire. 


wall at the gable-end, and beneath which 
the barge-board runs, is termed the targe- 
course. 


Barham ( bar ' am )> Richard Harris, 
a humorous writer, born in 
1788 at Canterbury; educated at Paul’s 
School, London, and at Brasenose, Ox¬ 
ford ; appointed in succession curate of 
Ashford, curate of Westwell, rector of 
Snargate, in Romney Marsh, and one 
of the minor canons of St. Paul’s Cathe¬ 
dral. He published an unsuccessful 
novel, Baldwin, wrote nearly a third of 
the articles in Gordon's Biographical 
Dictionary, and contributed to Black¬ 
wood's Magazine. In 1824 he was ap¬ 
pointed priest in ordinary of the chapel- 
royal, and afterwards rector of St. Mary 
Magdalene and St. Gregory-by-St.-Paul, 
London. In 1837, on the starting of 
Bentley's Miscellany, he laid the main 
foundation of his literary fame by the 
publication in that periodical of the In- 
goldsby Legends. He died in 1845. 


Bar Harbor a v i^ a & e and popular 
’ summer resort of Mt. 
Desert Island, Maine, 46 miles s. E. of 
Bangor. It has annually 15,000 to 20,- 
000 summer visitors, and ranks with 
Newport as an exclusive fashionable 
resort. 


Barhebrae'us. See Abulfaragius. 


Bari (k a,ra ; anc - Barium), a seaport 
of S. Italy, on a small promon¬ 
tory of the Adriatic, capital of the prov¬ 
ince Terra di Bari. It was a place of 
importance as early as the third century 
B.c., and has been thrice destroyed and 
rebuilt. The present town, though poorly 
built for the most part, has a large Nor¬ 
man castle, a fine cathedral and priory, 
etc. It manufactures cotton and linen 
goods, hats, soap, glass, and liqueurs; 


has a trade in wine, grain, almonds, oil, 
etc., and is now an important seaport. 
Pop. about 70,000. The province, Bari 
delle Puglie (dal'la pol'ya), has an area 
of 2066 sq. miles, and is fertile in fruit, 
wine, oil, etc.; pop. 837,683. 

Ba/ri a ne S ro people of Africa, dwelling 
’ on both sides of the White Nile, 
and having Gondokoro as their chief 
town. They practise agriculture and 
cattle-rearing. Their country was con¬ 
quered by Sir Samuel W. Baker for 
Egypt. 

Barilla (ba-ril'la), the commercial 
name for the impure carbon¬ 
ate and sulphate of soda imported from 
Spain and the Levant. It is the Spanish 
name of a plant ( Salsola soda), from 
the ashes of which and from those of 
others of the same genus the crude alkali 
is obtained. On the shores of the Medi¬ 
terranean the seeds of the plants from 
which it is obtained are regularly sown 
near the sea, and these, when at a suffi¬ 
cient state of maturity, are pulled up, 
dried, and burned in bundles in ovens or 
in trenches. The ashes, while hot, are 
continually stirred with long poles, and 
the saline matter they contain forms, 
when cold, a solid mass, almost as hard 
as stone. To obtain the carbonate of 
soda it is only requisite to lixiviate the 
barilla in boiling water, and evaporate 
the solution. British barilla or kelp is a 
still more impure alkali obtained from 
burning sea-weeds. Soda is now ob¬ 
tained for the most part from common 
salt. 

(ba-ring-gold'), Sa¬ 
bine, English clergy¬ 
man and author, born at Exeter 1834. 
He was educated at Cambridge, held 
several livings in the English Church, 
wrote with considerable success on 
theological and miscellaneous subjects, 
and more recently distinguished him¬ 
self as a novelist. Among his works are: 
Iceland, its Beenes and Sagas; Curious 
Myths of the Middle Ages; The Origin 
and Development of Religious Belief; 
Lives of the Saints (in 15 vols.) ; Ger¬ 
many, Past and Present, etc.; besides the 
novels Mehalah, John Herring, Richard 
Cable, The Gaverocks, etc.; and short 
stories or novelettes. 


Baring-Gould 




the Victoria Nyanza, about 

20 miles long. 

Bar'ita. See Piping crow. 


Baritone. 01 ’ Barytone (bar'i-ton), a 

'male voice, the compass of 
which partakes of those of the common 
bass and the tenor, but does not extend 
so far downwards as the one nor to an 












































ENTERING A STATION 


STRUCTURE OVER THE RIVER WUPPER 

Two views of the Barmen-Elberfeld Monorail system in Germany. 






















Barium 


Barley 


equal height with the other. Its best 
tones are from the lower A of the bass 
clef to the lower F in the treble. For¬ 
merly applied to lower, or heavy, bass 
voice: bary, i. e. heavy, tone. 

Barin-m (ba'ri-um), a metallic element 
.Dell mill of yellow color< symbo i Ba, 

specific gravity 4. It is found only in 
compounds, such as the common sulphate 
and carbonate, and was isolated by Davy 
for the first time in 1808. It is malleable 
and fuses at a low temperature. It de¬ 
composes water at low temperatures, 
and when exposed to the air quickly 
combines with oxygen, which it is used 
to isolate; also used to precipitate sul¬ 
phates from solutions. 

Bark ex t er i° r covering of the 

1 stems of exogenous plants. It 
is composed of cellular and vascular tis¬ 
sue, is separable from the wood, and is 
often regarded as consisting of four 
layers: 1st, the epidermis or cuticle, 

which, however, is scarcely regarded as a 
part of the true bark; 2d, the epiphlceum 
or outer cellular layer of the true bark 
or cortex ; 3d. the mesophloeum or middle 
layer, also cellular; 4th, an inner vascu¬ 
lar layer, the liber or endophlasum, com¬ 
monly called bast. Endogenous plants 
have no true bark. Bark contains many 
valuable products, as gum, tannin, etc.; 
cork is a highly useful substance ob¬ 
tained from the epiphloeum; and the 
strength and flexibility of bast makes 
it of considerable value. Bark used for 
tanning is obtained from oak, hemlock- 
spruce, a species of acacia growing in 
Australia, etc. Angostura bark, Peruvian 
or cinchona bark, cinnamon, cascarilla, 
etc., are useful barks. 

Bark. See Barque. 


Bark Peruvian, is a bark of various 
.Ddi-ix, spec i es c f trees of the genus 
Cinchona, found in many parts of South 
America, but more particularly in Peru, 
and having medicinal properties. It was 
formerly called Jesuit's bark, from its 
having been introduced into Europe by 
Jesuits. Its medicinal properties depend 
upon the presence of the alkaloid qui¬ 
nine, which is now extracted from the 
bark, imported, and prescribed in place 
of nauseous mouthfuls of bark. See 
Cinchona. 

■RovVov’c Mill also called Scottish 
£>arKei & mill, turbine, a hydraulic 

machine on the principle of what is 
known as the hydraulic tourniquet. This 
consists of an upright vessel free to ro¬ 
tate about a vertical axis, and having at 
its lower end two discharging pipes pro¬ 
jecting horizontally on either side and 
bent in opposite directions at the ends, 


through which the water is discharged 
horizontally, the direction of discharge 
being mainly at right angles to a line 
joining the discharging orifice to the axis. 
The backward pressures at the bends of 
the tubes, arising from the two issuing 
jets of water, cause the apparatus to 
revolve in an opposite direction to the 
issuing fluid. 

Bark-in a* a town of England, county 
of Essex, on the Boding, 7 
miles N. e. of London, with some im¬ 
portant manufacturing works. Near it 
is the outfall of the sewage of a large 
part of London. Pop. (1911) 31,302. 

Bark-stove, Bark-bed a sort of hot- 
J house for forcing or for 
growing plants that require a great heat 
combined with moisture, both of which 
are supplied by the fermentation that 
sets up in a bed of spent tanner’s bark 
contained in a brick pit under glass. 

Barlaam and Jos'aphat, ^ o f u a " 

mediaeval spiritual romance, which is in 
its main details a Christianized ver¬ 
sion of the Hindu legends of Buddha. 
The story first appeared in Greek in 
the works of Joannes Damascenus in the 
eighth century. The compilers of the 
Gesta Romanorum, Boccaccio, Gower, and 
Shakespere have all drawn materials 
from it. 


Bar-lp-rlnr (bar-l-duk), a town of 
Udi 1C uui Northeast France, capi¬ 
tal of an arrondissement in the depart¬ 
ment of Meuse, with manufactures of cot¬ 
ton and woolen stuffs, leather, confec¬ 
tionery, etc. Pop. (1906) 14,624. 

Barlpf+a (bar-let'ta), a seaport in 
JDd/11C l la gouth Ita j y> province 0 f 

Bari, on the Adriatic, with a fine Gothic 
cathedral; it has a considerable export 
trade in grain, wine, almonds, etc. Pop. 
40,388. 

Bariev (b&r'li), the name of several 
cereal plants of the genus 
Hordeum, order Graminese (grasses), 
yielding a grain used as food and also 
for making malt, from which are prepared 
beer, porter, and whisky. Barley has 
been known and cultivated from remote 
antiquity, and beer was made from it 
among the Egyptians. The cultivation 
of it extends from Italy northward in 
Europe, it being used for making bread 
in the north, being better adapted than 
any other grain to the most northerly 
grain-growing latitude. The species 
principally cultivated are Hordeum dis- 
tichum, two-rowed barley: H. vulgdre, 
four-rowed barley; and H. hexastichum, 
six-rowed, of which the small variety is 
the sacred barley of the ancients. The 
varieties of the four and six-rowed 



Barley-sugar 


Barnard-Castle 


species are generally coarser than those 
of the two-rowed, and adapted for a 
poorer soil and more exposed situation. 
Some of these are called here or bigg. 
In Britain barley occupies about the 
same area as wheat, but in N. America 
the extent of it as a crop is comparatively 
small, being in Canada, however, rela¬ 
tively greater than in the States, and the 
Canadian barley is of very high quality. 
Barley is better adapted for cold climates 
than any other grain, and some of the 
coarser varieties are cultivated where no 
other cereal can be grown. Pot or 
Scotch barley is the grain deprived of 
the husk in a mill. Pearl barley is the 
grain polished and rounded and deprived 
of husk and pellicle. Patent barley is 
the farina obtained by grinding pearl bar¬ 
ley. Barley water, a decoction of pearl 
barley, is used in medicine as possessing 
emollient, diluent, and expectorant quali¬ 
ties. 

"Rarlpv-qnp’flr P ure su s ar melted 
JDdliey bU & d,1 > and allowed to solid¬ 
ify into an amorphous mass without 
crystallizing. 

Barlow (bar'lo), Joel, an American 
poet and diplomatist; born in 
Connecticut in 1754. After an active 
and changeful life as chaplain in the 
Revolutionary war, lawyer, editor, land- 
agent, lecturer, and consul, he went 
to Paris and acquired a fortune. On 
his return to America he was ap¬ 
pointed minister plenipotentiary to France 
(1811), but died near Cracow in 1812 
on his way to meet Napoleon. His prin¬ 
cipal poem, the Columbiad, dealing with 
American history from the time of Co¬ 
lumbus, was published in 1807. It is a 
weighty epic which no one now reads. 

Barm. See Yeast. 


Barmecides l b 4 r ' m f s l dz) ! a t dis ‘‘ n - 

guished Persian family, 
whose virtue and splendor form a favor¬ 
ite subject with Mohammedan poets and 
historians. Two eminent members of this 
family were Khaled-ben-Barmek, tutor 
of Harun al Rashid ; and his son Yahya, 
grand vizier of Harun. The expression 
Barmecides Feast, meaning a visionary 
banquet or make-believe entertainment, 
originates from the Barber’s story of his 
Sixth Brother in the Arabian Nights’ 
Entertainments. 

Barmeil (bar'men), a German city on 
. the Wupper, in the Prussian 
Rhine Province, government of Diissel- 
dorf, and forming a continuation of the 
town of Elberfeld, in the valley of Bar¬ 
men. It has extensive ribbon and other 
textile manufactures; also dye-works, 
manufactures of chemicals, metal wares, 


buttons, yarns, iron, machines, pianos, or¬ 
gans, soap, etc. Pop. (1905) 156,080. 

Barnabas < b4r ' na : bas ) ; the surname 

g 1V en by the apostles to 
Joses, a fellow-laborer of Paul, and, like 
him, ranked as an apostle. He is said 
to have founded at Antioch the first 
Christian community, to have been first 
bishop of Milan, and to have suffered 
martyrdom at Cyprus. His festival is 
held on the 11th June. 

"RarnsihaQ Saint, Epistle of, an 
AJdiiid-ucia, epistle in twenty-one chap¬ 
ters unanimously ascribed to Barnabas 
by early Christian writers, but without 
any support of internal evidence. It 
was probably written between 119 and 
126 b.c., by one who was not a Jew and 
under the influence of Alexandrian Juda- 
istic thought. 

"RarnaTrifAC (bar'na-blts), an order 

isarnaoites of monks foundRd in 

Milan in 1530 and named after the 
Milan church of St. Barnabas, which was 
allotted them to preach in. A few monas¬ 
teries of the order still exist in France 
and Italy. 

Barnacle < Mr .' na - bl >> th ] e ,, nam « ot « 

family (Lepadidfe) of ma¬ 
rine crustaceous animals, order Cirri- 
pedia. They are enveloped by a mantle 
and shell, composed of five 
principal valves and several 
smaller pieces, joined to¬ 
gether by a membrane at¬ 
tached to their circumfer¬ 
ence ; and they are furnished 
with a long, flexible, fleshy 
stalk or peduncle, provided 
with muscles, by which they 
attach themselves to ships’ 
bottoms, submerged timber, Barnacle 

etc. They feed on small (& P asana? 

marine animals, brought tifera). 

within their reach by the water and se¬ 
cured by their tentacula. Some of the 
larger species are edible. According to 
an old fable, these animals produced 
barnacle geese. 

Barnacle Goose (Aw f er Bemicia 

Or / P1I OChTlQI O 1 Q 

summer visitant of the northern seas, in 
size rather smaller than the common wild 
goose, and having the forehead and cheeks 
white, the upper body and neck black. A 
fable asserts that the crustaceans called 
barnacles (see preceding article) changed 
into geese, and various theories have been 
franied to account for its origin. Max 
Muller supposes the geese were originally 
called Hiberniculce or Irish geese, and 
that barnacle is a corruption of this. 

Barnard-Castle, % town of England, 

m, . ’County Durham. 

Ihere are a large threadmill and carpet 
























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Barnard 


Barneveldt 


manufactories. It has the ruins of a 
stately castle originally built about 1178 
by Bernard Baliol, grandfather of John 
Baliol, and a valuable fine-art museum. 
Pop. 4757. 

BarnarrU Edward Emerson, astrono- 
5 mer, born at Nashville, Ten¬ 
nessee, in 1857; graduated at Vanderbilt 
University 1887; was astronomer at the 
Lick Observatory 1887-95; afterwards 
at the Yerkes observatory and professor 
of Astronomy at the University of 
Chicago. He discovered in 1S92 a fifth 
satellite of Jupiter, made other dis¬ 
coveries of importance, and did valuable 
work in celestial photography. He has 
been awarded the gold medals of various 
French and British societies. 

Bar'll a rd Frederick Augustus, 
9 teacher and educational 
writer, born at Sheffield, Mass., in 1S09. 
He graduated at Yale in 1828, was pro¬ 
fessor in the University of Alabama 1837- 
54, took orders in the P. E. Church in 
1854, was president of the University of 
Mississippi 1856-61, and 1864-88 presi¬ 
dent of Columbia College, New York, 
which he endowed with Barnard College. 
He wrote Recent Progress of Science. 
The Metric System , Letters on College 
Government , etc. He died April 27, 
1889. 

George Gray, sculptor, 
-DdHIClIU, born at Bellefontej Penn . 

sylvania, May 24, 1863, educated at Art 
Institute. Chicago, and at ficole Nation- 
ale des Beaux Arts, Paris ; was awarded 
gold medals at the Paris Exposition of 
1890 and the Buffalo Exposition of 
1901. His productions include Brotherly 
Love, Two Natures, The God Pan (in 
Central Park, N. Y.), Mother and An¬ 
gel, Urn of Life, etc. His greatest 
achievement is the series of colossal 
figures made for the Pennsylvania State 
Capitol, including Adam and Eve (re¬ 
lief, 22 feet high), Labor and Rest, Love 
and Labor, and others, which have 
aroused the enthusiastic admiration of 
art critics. These great works were com¬ 
pleted under stress of severe difficulties, 
the state authorities delaying in provid¬ 
ing the necessary funds. They were put 
in place on the capitol in 1911, and are 
considered among the finest examples of 
modern sculptural art. 

‘Rovnflv'fln Thomas John, a philan- 
Jjctl lld/l UU, thropist> born in i re i and 

in 1845; died 1905. In 1866, while 
studying in London Hosnital, he became 
interested in the condition of homeless 
children, founded a ‘ Home ’ for them in 
1867, and afterwards organized institu¬ 
tions in which 36,000 orphan waifs were 
rescued and trained for useful careers. 


He founded the Young Helpers’ League in 
1891 and wrote much on the reclamation 
of deserted children. 

Barnaul (bar-na-ol'). a town in 
Siberia, and capital of the 
important Altai mining district: has gold, 
copper and silver mines in its vicinity 
and many furnaces and smelters. Pop. 
29,850. 

Barn a vp (bar-nav), Antoine-Pierre- 
-DdllldVd j 0SEPn . MARIEt a distin _ 

guished French revolutionist, who suc¬ 
cessfully maintained against Mirabeau 
the right of the National Assembly as 
against that of the king to declare for 
peace or war, but afterwards asserted the 
inviolability of the king’s person, was 
impeached, condemned, and guillotined. 
Born 1761: died 1793. 

Barn pc (barnz), Albert, theologian, 
-Demies born in the gtate Qf New 

York in 1798. In 1825 he was ordained 
pastor of the Presbyterian Church of 
Morristown. New Jersey, and from 1830 
till his death in 1870 had charge of the 
First Presbyterian Church in Philadel¬ 
phia. He is chiefly known by his Notes 
on the New Testament and Notes on the 
Old Testament. 

Barn pc William, an English dialect 

-Ddiiica, poet an(J philolo g ist? born in 

Dorsetshire in 1800; died in 1886. Of 
humble birth, he first entered a solicitor’s 
office, then taught a school in Dorchester, 
and having taken orders became rector 
of Winterbourne. Came in his native 
county and died there. He acquired a 
knowledge of many languages, and pub¬ 
lished works on Anglo-Saxon and English, 
as An Anglo-Saxon Delectus, A Philolog¬ 
ical Grammar, grounded upon English, 
Grammar and Glossary of the Dorset 
Dialect, etc., but is best known by his 
Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset dia¬ 
lect, and Rural Poems in common Eng¬ 
lish. 

Bar'npt a town of England, in 
9 Herts, 11 miles from London, 
where was fought in 1471 a battle be¬ 
tween the Yorkists and Lancastrians, re¬ 
sulting in the defeat of the latter and the 
death of Warwick, Edward IV being 
thus established on the throne. 

Barneveldt (b&r'ne-velt), J °HN VAN 
Olden, grand pen¬ 
sionary of Holland during the struggle 
with Phillip II of Spain ; born in 1549. 
After the assassination of William of 
Orange, and the conquest of the south 
provinces by the Spaniards under Parma, 
he headed the embassy to secure English 
aid. Finding, however, that the Earl of 
Leicester proved a worse than useless 
ally, he secured the elevation of the young 
Maurice of Nassau to the post of stadt- 




Barnsley 


Barometer 


holder, at the same time by his own 
wise administration doing much to restore 
the prosperity of the state. After serving 
as ambassador to France and England, 
he succeeded in 1607 in obtaining from 
Spain a recognition of the independence 
of the States, and two years later in con¬ 
cluding with her the twelve years’ truce. 
Maurice, ambitious of absolute rule and 
jealous of the influence of Barneveldt, 
was interested in the continuance of the 
war, and lost no opportunity of hostile 
action against the great statesman. In 
this he was aided by the strongly-marked 
theological division in the state between 
the Gomarites (the Calvinistic and 
popular party) and the Arminians, of 
whom Barneveldt was a supporter. 
Maurice, who had thrown in his lot with 
the Gomarites, encouraged the idea that 
the Arminians were the friends of Spain, 
and procured the assembly of a synod 
at Dort (1618) which violently con¬ 
demned them. Barneveldt and his friends 
Grotius and Hoogerbeets were arrested, 
and subjected to a mock trial; and Barne¬ 
veldt, to whom the country owed its 
political existence and the commons their 
retention of legislative power, was be¬ 
headed on May 13th, 1619. His sons 
four years later attempted to avenge 
his death; one was beheaded, the other 
escaped to Spain. 

Barnslev (barnz'le), a town of Eng- 
.Ddiiibiey landj w Ridin? of York . 

shire. Its staple industries are the manu¬ 
facture of linens, glass, iron, steel, and 
needles, and there are numerous collieries 
in the neighborhood. Pop. (1911) 50,- 
623. 

Barnstable (barn'sta-b’]), a seaport 
of Massachusetts, on a 
bay of the same name, a part of Cape Cod 
Bay. It is the county town of Barnsta¬ 
ble Co., a sandy region, largely devoted to 
cranberry cultivation. The town has 
numerous vessels engaged in fisheries and 
the coast trade. Pop. 4600. 

Barnstaple (barn'sta-p’l), a seaport 
r of England, county of 
Devon, on the right bank of the Taw, 
where it receives the Yeo; has manu¬ 
factures of lace, paper, pottery, furni¬ 
ture, toys and turnery, and leather. Pop. 
(1911) 14,488. 

Bar'nnm p hin eas t.. a famous 

9 American showman, born 
atBethei, Connecticut, in 1810; died in 
f®91. In 1841 he established a museum 
jn New York City, devoted to real and 
pretended wonders and which won great 
celebrity. The most notable of his 
achievements was the bringing to Amer¬ 
ica of the famous Swedish vocalist, Jenny 
Bind, who through her own powers and 


his skillful advertising was a great 
success. See his Life , written by himself. 

Baroach. See Broach. 

"Ra-mrla (ba-ro'da), a non-tributary 
cuuud state> but subordinate to the 
Indian government; situated in the north 
of the Bombay presidency. It consists 
of a number of detached territories in 
the province of Guzerat, and is generally 
level, fertile, and well cultivated, pro¬ 
ducing luxuriant crops of grain, cotton, 
tobacco, opium, sugar-cane, and oil-seeds. 
There is a famous breed of large white 
oxen used as draught cattle. Area 8226 
sq. miles; pop. (est.l 1,953,000. The 
ruler is called the Oaekwdr. The dis¬ 
sensions of the Baroda family have more 
than once called for British intervention, 
and in 1875 the ruling Gaekwar was 
tried and deposed in connection with the 
charge of attempt to poison the British 
resident.— Baroda, the capital, is the 
third city in the Bombay presidency. It 
consists of the city proper within the 
walls and the suburbs without, and is 
largely composed of poor and crowded 
houses, but has also some fine buildings, 
and is noted for its Hindu temples kept 
up by the state. Pop. 103,800 (includ¬ 
ing troops in the adjoining cantonment). 

Barometer (ba-rom'e-ter), an in¬ 
strument for measur¬ 

ing the weight or pressure of the atmos¬ 
phere and thus determining changes in 





Common Upright 
Barometer. 


Marine 

Barometer. „„ wuloroi . 

the weather, the height of mountains, and 
other phenomena. It had its origin 
about the middle of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury in an experiment of Torricelli, an 
Italian, wlio found that if a glass tube 






















Barometer 


Barometer 


about 3 feet in length, open at one end 
only, and filled with mercury, was placed 
vertically with the open end in a cup 
of the same fluid metal, a portion of 
the mercury descended into the cup, leav¬ 
ing a column only about 30 inches in 
height in the tube. He inferred, there¬ 
fore, that the atmospheric pressure on 
the surface of the mercury in the cup 
forced it up the tube to the height of 
30 inches, and that this was so because 
the weight of a column of air from the 
cup to the top of the atmosphere was 
equal only to that of a column of mercury 
of the same base and 30 inches high. 
Pascal confirmed the conclusion in 1645; 
six years afterwards it was found by 
Perrier that the height of the mercury 
in the Torricellian tube varied with the 
weather; and, in 1665, Boyle proposed 
to use the instrument to measure the 
heisrht of mountains. 

The common or cistern barometer, 
which is a modification of the Torricel¬ 
lian tube, consists of a glass tube 33 
inches in length and about one-third of 
an inch in diameter, hermetically sealed 
at the top, and having the lower end 
resting in a small vessel containing mer¬ 
cury, or bent upwards and terminating in 
a glass bulb partly occupied by the mer¬ 
cury and open to the atmosphere. The 
tube is first filled with purified mercury, 
and then inverted, and there is affixed to 
it a scale to mark the height of the mer¬ 
curial column, which comparatively sel¬ 
dom rises above 31 or sinks below 28 
inches. In general the rising of the mer¬ 
cury presages fair weather, and its fall¬ 
ing the contrary, a great and sudden fall 
being the usual presage of a storm. The 
weather-points on the ordinary baromet¬ 
ric scale are as follows:—At 28 inches, 
stormy weather; 28%, much rain or 
snow; 29, rain or snow; 29%, change¬ 
able ; 30, fair or frost; 30%, settled fair 
or frost; 31, very dry weather or hard 
frost. Certain attendant signs, however, 
have also to be noted: thus, when fair 
or foul weather follows almost immedi¬ 
ately upon the rise or fall of the mercury, 
the change is usually of short duration; 
while if the change of weather be delayed 
for some days after the variation in the 
mercury, it is usually of long continuance. 
The direction of the wind has also to be 
taken into account. 

The siphon barometer consists of a 
bent tube, generally of uniform bore, hav¬ 
ing two unequal legs, the longer closed, 
the shorter open. A sufficient quantity of 
mercury having been introduced to fill 
the longer leg, the instrument is set up¬ 
right, and the mercury takes such a posi¬ 
tion that the difference of the levels in the 


two legs represents the pressure of the 
atmosphere. In the best siphon barome¬ 
ters there are two scales, one for each 
leg, the divisions on one being reckoned 



Siphon Barometer. Wheel Barometer. 

upwards, and on the other downwards 
from an intermediate zero point, so that 
the sum of the two readings is the differ¬ 
ence of levels of the mercury in the two 
branches. 

The wheel barometer is the one that 
is most commonly used for domestic pur¬ 
poses. It is far from being accurate, but 
it is often preferred for ordinary use on 
account of the greater range of its scale, 
by which small differences in the height 
of the column of mercury are more easily 
observed. It usually consists of a siphon 
barometer, having a float resting on the 
surface of the mercury in the open 
branch, a thread attached to the float 
passing over a pulley, and having a weight 
as a counterpoise to the float at its 
extremity. As the mercury rises and 
falls the thread and weight turn the 
pulley, which again moves the index of 
tlm dial. 

The mountain barometer is a portable 
mercurial barometer with a tripod sup¬ 
port and a long scale for measuring the 
altitude of mountains. To prevent break¬ 
age, through the oscillations of such a 
heavy liquid as mercury, it is usually 
carried inverted, or it is furnished with 
a movable basin and a screw, by means 
of which the mercury may be forced up 
to the top of the tube. For delicate 
operations, such as the measurement of 
altitudes, the scale of the barometer is 
furnished with a nonius or vernier, which 
greatly increases the minuteness and 
accuracy of the scale. For the rough 
estimate of altitudes the following rule 













Barometz 


Baronius 


is sufficient:—As the sum of the heights 
of the mercury at the bottom and top 
of the mountain is to their difference, so 
is 52,000 to the height to be measured, in 
feet. (See also Heights, Measurement 
of.) In exact barometric observations 
two corrections require to be made, one 
for the depression of the mercury in the 
tube by capillary attraction, the other 
for temperature, which increases or di¬ 
minishes the bulk of the mercury. In 
regard to the measurement of heights 
the general rule is to subtract the ten- 
thousandth part of the observed altitude 
for every degree of Fahrenheit above 
32°. 

In the aneroid barometer, as its name 
implies (Gr. a, not, neros, liquid), no 
fluid is employed, the action being de¬ 
pendent upon the susceptibility to atmo¬ 
spheric pressure shown by a flat circu¬ 
lar metallic chamber from which the air 

has been part¬ 
ially exhausted, 
and which has a 
flexible top and 
bottom of corru- 
gated metal 
plate. By an 
ingen ious a r- 
rangem e n t of 
springs and lev¬ 
ers the depres¬ 
sion or elevation 
of the surface of 
the box is registered by an index on the 
dial, by which means it is also greatly 
magnified, being given in inches to cor¬ 
respond with the mercurial barometer. 
Aneroids are, however, generally less reli¬ 
able than mercurial barometers, with 
which they should be frequently com¬ 
pared. The cut shows an aneroid without 
its case, a is the partially exhausted 
chamber, b a strong spring connected 
with its top and with the base-plate, c 
a lever from b connected through the 
bent lever d with the chain e coiled 
round f, and always kept tense by the 
spiral spring g. As the top of a rises 
or falls its motion is transmitted by B 
to the levers and chain so as to move the 
needle h. At j is seen the tube through 
which the air is drawm from a. 
Barometz (bar'o-metz), a prostrate 
tern, which grows in the 
salt-plains, near the Caspian Sea. It is 
covered with a yellow silky down, from 
which of old costly garments are said to 
have been woven. It is also known as the 
Tatar or Scythian Lamb, it bearing a 
rough resemblance to an animal and a 
hairy covering. The Russians formerly 
regarded it as at once plant and animai, 
believing it, while growing on a stalk, to 



Aneroid Barometer. 


have the organs and limbs of a lamb, to 
eat grass, and have other animal charac¬ 
teristics. 

"Ramil (bar'un), originally, in the 
a feudal system, the vassal or 

immediate tenant of any superior; but the 
term was afterwards restricted to the 
king’s barons, and again to the greater 
of these only, who attended the Great 
Council, or who, at a later date, were 
summoned by writ to Parliament. It was 
the second rank of nobility, until dukes 
and marquises were introduced and 
placed above the earls, and viscounts 
were also set above the barons, who, 
therefore, now hold the lowest rank in 
the British peerage. The present barons 
are of three classes: (1) barons by pre¬ 
scription, whose ancestors have im- 
memorially sat in the Upper House ; (2) 
by patent; (3) by tenure, i.e. holding 
the title as annexed to land. The coronet 
is a plain gold circle with six balls or 
large pearls on its edge, the connected cap 
being of crimson velvet.— Baron and feme, 
a term used for husband and wife in the 
English law.— Baron of beef, two sirloins 
not cut asunder. 

(bar'un-et), a hereditary 
-DdlUIieL dignity in Great Britain and 
Ireland, next in rank to the peerage, orig¬ 
inally instituted by James I, in 1611, 
nominally to promote the colonization 
and defense of Ulster, each baronet, on 
his creation being originally obliged to 
pay into the treasury a sum of £1095, ex¬ 
clusive of fees. Baronets in Ireland 
were instituted in 1620, and in Scotland 
in 1625, the latter being called Baronets 
of Scotland and Nova Scotia, because 
their creation was originally intended to 
further the colonization of Nova Scotia. 
But the baronets of Scotland and of Ire¬ 
land have been baronets of the United 
Kingdom if created since 1707 and 1801, 
respectively. A baronet has the title of 
‘ Sir ’ prefixed to his Christian and sur¬ 
name, and his wife is ‘ Lady ’ so-and-so. 
Baronets rank before all knights. They 
have as their badge a ‘ bloody hand ’ (the 
arms of Ulster), that is, a left hand, 
erect and open, cut off at the wrist, and 
red in color. 

"Rarrminc (ba-ro'ni-us), or Baronio. 

.Baronius CjESABf an Italian eccle _ 

siastical historian, born 1538; educated 
at Naples; in 1557 went to Rome; was 
one. of the first pupils of St. Philip of 
Neri, and member of the oratory founded 
by him: afterwards cardinal and librarian 
of the. Vatican Library. He owed these 
dignities to the services which he rendered 
the church by his Ecclesiastical Annals, 
comprising valuable documents from the 
papal archives, on which he labored from 






Barons’ War 


Barrafranca 


the year 1580 until his death, June 30, 
1G07. They were continued, though with 
less power, by other writers, of whom 
Raynaldi takes the first rank. 

"R£^rrmc , Wov the war carried on for 
.Barons w ar > s e v e r a 1 years by 

Simon de Montfort and other barons of 
Henry III against the king, beginning 
in 1263. 

Baronv (bar'un-i), a manor or landed 
2 estate under a baron, who 
formerly had certain rights of jurisdiction 
in his barony and could hold special 
courts. In Ireland baronies are still the 
chief subdivisions of the counties. 

Barothermograpli 

ratus for recording simultaneously the 
atmospheric pressure and temperature; 



Jjtfl u. \ 

|f| 



] j 

I 


1: 


I 


]■— 



Assmann’s Barothermograph. 
b, aneroid barometer which gives horizontal 
motion to the cylinder, c ; t, thermometer inside 
a protecting tube, r, which gives vertical motion 
to the pen,jp. 

a combination of barograph and ther¬ 
mograph, especially such as are made 
portable and very light to be sent up 
with kites and sounding-balloons. 
■Rormiehe (ba-rosh'), a four-wheeled 

isaroucne carriage with a falling top 
and tw f o inside seats in which four per¬ 
sons can sit, two fronting two. 
■RavmiP (bark), a three-masted vessel 
* DclA 4. uc of which the foremast and 
mainmast are square-rigged, but the miz¬ 
zenmast has fore-and-aft sails only. 

Barquesimeto 0 a f 

Venezuela, capital of the state of Lara. 
Population about 35,000. 

”Rq w Amelia Edith, a novelist, born 
j n ui vers t; 0n> England, in 1831. 
Marrying Robert Barr, she went to Texas 


in 1854, and w r as left a widow in 1867. 
She then removed to New York, engaged 
in writing for periodicals, and after 1880 
produced many novels, some of them very 
popular. Among the best knowm are 
Jan VeddePs Wife, A Bow of Orange 
Ribbon, The Lone House, and Friend 
Olivia. 

”Rq rr Robert, a Scottish novelist, born 
* Dd ' li Hn Glasgow in 1850. He lived 
for a time in America, engaged on the 
Detroit Free Press. In 1881 he went 
to England, where he wrote under the 
name of ‘ Luke Sharp.’ Among his 
numerous tales are In a Steamer Chair, 
The Face and the Mash, In the Midst of 
Alarms, The Mutable Many, Tehla, etc. 
With Jerome K. Jerome he founded the 
Idler magazine in 1S92. 

■Rp rr r, (bar'ra), a town of Italy, 
x>axxa a b ou j- 3 miles east of Naples. 
Pop. 11.975. » 

T5o rr p or Bar, a small kingdom in 
.Dellid, Africa, near the mouth of the 
Gambia. The Mandingoes, who form a 
considerable part of the inhabitants, are 
Mohammedans and the most civilized 
people on the Gambia. Pop. 200,000. It 
is part of the British colony of Gambia. 
"R^rra an island of the Outer Heb- 
XJctxia, r j^ eg> w coast of Scotland, be¬ 
longing to Inverness-shire; 8 miles long 
and from 2 to 5 broad, of irregular out¬ 
line. with rocky coasts, surface hilly but 
furnishing excellent pasture. On the w. 
coast the Atlantic, beating with all its 
force, has hollowed out vast caves and 
fissures. Large herds of cattle and 
flocks of sheep are reared on the island. 
The coast waters of this and adjacent 
islands abound with fish, and fishing is 
an important industry. Pop. about 2500. 

"R{jvrflP!iyi (bara-kan), strictly, a 
Jjd/I I dOdll tllick strong stuff made in 

Persia and Armenia of camel’s hair, but 
the name has been applied to various 
w r ool, flax, and cotton fabrics. 

"Rdrrark (bar'ak ; Spanish barraca), 
x>diicU/JA originally a small cabin or 

hut for troops, but now applied to the 
permanent buildings in which troops are 
lodged. 

■Rarraplrrmr (bar-ak-por'), a town 
.BarraCKpui and military canton¬ 
ment, Hindustan, on the left bank of the 
Hooghly, 15 miles n. n. e. of Calcutta. 
The suburban residence of the viceroy is 
in Barrackpur Park. Pop. 17,700. 

’Rarrflpnnn (bar'a-kon), a negro bar- 
.oaiiaLUUii rack or glave depot? for 

merly plentiful on the west coast of 
Africa, in Cuba, Brazil, etc. 

Barrafran'ca, «£ 

10,878. 












































Barramunda 


Barrie 


■Ravva-mnn'rla 0 guilty of this offense being indictable as 

isarramun Cla. See Ceratodus. a common barrator or barretor. The 

■Rarvanmn’lla (bar-ran-kel'ya), a port commencing of suits in the name of a fic- 
xmi i uina of gouth America, in titious plaintiff is common barratry. 
Colombia, on a branch of the river Mag- "Rarre (bar're), a city of Washington 

dalena, near its entrance into the Carib- Co., Vermont, the seat of God- 

bean Sea, connected by rail with the sea- dard Seminary. It is the granite center 
port Sabanilla. It is the most important of the United States, has extensive quar- 
commercial city of Colombia. Pop. about ries, also manufactures of foundry prod- 
35,000. ucts, stone-cutters’ tools, etc. Pop. 10,734. 

"RflrrflS (bft-ra), Paul FRANgois Jean Parrel (bar'el), a well-known variety 

Nicholas, Comte de, member ** A of wooden vessel; also used as 

of the French national convention and of a definite measure and weight. A barrel 
the executive directory, born in Provence of beer is 36 gals., of flour 196 lbs., of 
1755; died in 1829. After serving in the beef or pork 200 lbs. 

army in India and Africa, he joined the Parrpl-OrP’RIl a mus ^ ca ^ instrument 
revolutionary party and was a deputy in U1 b a > usually carried by 

the tiers-6tat. He took part in the attack street musicians, in which a barrel stud- 
upon the Bastille and upon the Tuileries, ded with pegs or staples, when turned 
and voted for the death of Louis XVI. round, opens a series of valves to admit 
In the subsequent events he displeased air to a set of pipes, or acts upon wire 
Robespierre, and on this account joined strings like those of the piano, thus pro- 
the members of the committee, who fore- ducing a fixed series of tunes, 
saw danger awaiting them, and being en- Porrett (bar'et). La whence (Bran- 
trusted with the chief command of the nigan), a leading actor, 

forces of his party he succeeded in the son of an Irish mechanic, born in Pater- 
overthrow of Robespierre. On Feb. 4, son, New Jersey, in 1838. He showed 
1795, he was elected president of the con- as an amateur his special talent while 
vention, and on Oct. 5, when the troops working in a store, went on the profes- 
of the sections which favored the royal sional stage in 1854, and soon reached 
cause approached, Barras for a second front rank in his profession. Was closely 
time received the chief command of the associated with Edwin Booth, whose Life 
forces of the convention. On this oc- he wrote. Died in 1891. 
casion he employed General Bonaparte. PorvAtt Wilson, an English actor, 
for w’hom he procured the chief command x,a > novelist, dramatist and poet, 

of the army of the interior, and after- born in 1846; died in 1904; is best re¬ 
wards the command of the army in Italy, membered for his great spectacular play. 
From the events of the 18th Fructidor The Sign of the Cross. 

(Sept. 4, 1797) he governed absolutely Parriparl a (bar'i-kad), an obstruction 
until the 13th June, 1799, when Siey£s c hastily raised to defend 

entered the directory, and in alliance with a narrow passage, such as a street, de- 
Bonaparte procured his downfall in the file, or bridge. When beams, chains, 
revolution of the 18th Brumaire (Nov. chevaux-de-frise and prepared materials 
9,1799). He afterwards resided at Brus- are wanting, wagons, barrows, casks, 
sels, Marseilles, Rome, and Montpellier chests, branches of trees, paving-stones, 
under surveillance, returning to Paris etc., are available for the purpose. They 
only after the restoration of the Bour- have been frequently used in popular out- 
bons. bursts, especially in Paris, though their 

Barratrv (k ar,a ' tr O> in commerce, accessibility to attack by breaking 
J any fraud committed by the through the houses of adjoining streets 
master or mariners of a ship, whereby the makes a prolonged tenure against troops 
owners, freighters, or insurers are in- impossible. 

jured, as by evading foreign port duties; Pav'viA a town of Ontario, Canada, 
deviation from the usual course of the 1 on the Grand Trunk R. R. 

voyage, by the captain, for bis own 64 miles N. N. w. of Toronto. Has 
private purposes; trading with an enemy, woodworking and other manufactures, 
whereby the ship is exposed to seizure; Pop. (1911) 6428. 

willful violation of a blockade; willful T?a r'rie J AMES Matthew, a Scotch 
resistance of search by a belligerent ves- a author, born at Kirriemuir, 

sel, where the right of search is legally in 1860. Became a journalist in London 
exercised; fraudulent negligence; em- in 1884. He showed marked humor and 
bezzlement of any part of the cargo, etc. pathos in A Window in Thrums and 
Barratry Common, in law, the stir- A Little Minister, the latter being 
ring up of lawsuits and dramatized in 1897. Other works are 
quarrels between other persons, the party Sentimental Tommy, Margaret Ogilvy, 




Barrier 


Barrow 


etc., and the plays Walker, London, and 
The Professor's Love Story. 

Barripr (bar'i-er) Reef, a coral reef 
which extends for 1260 miles 
off the n. e. coast of Australia, at a 
distance from land ranging from 10 to 
100 miles. In sailing from Sydney 
through Torres Straits vessels have the 
choice of the inner and outer routes; the 
former, though narrow, gives a channel 
of about 12 fathoms deep throughout, 
and protected from the sea by the reefs 
themselves; the outer channel is less 
accurately surveyed aud still dangerous. 

BarrillP’tori (bar'ing-ton), Daines, 
.DdlllllglUll son of viscount Barring¬ 
ton, lawyer, antiquarian, and naturalist; 
born in 1727; died in 1800. He wrote 
many papers for the Royal Society and 
the Society of Antiquaries; published 
some separate works, and was a corre¬ 
spondent of White of Selborne. 

Barrister ( , ba T' is \ ttr) ■ in J )n s la , nd or 

Ireland, an advocate or 
pleader, who has been admitted by one 
of the Inns of Court, viz., the Inner 
Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, 
or Gray’s Inn, to plead at the bar. It 
is they who speak before all the higher 
courts, being instructed in regard to the 
case they have in hand by means of the 
brief which they receive from the solic¬ 
itor who may happen to engage their 
services. Barristers are sometimes called 
utter or outer barristers, to distinguish 
them from the king’s counsel, who sit 
within the bar in the courts and are dis¬ 
tinguished by a silk gown. Barristers 
are also spoken of as counsel, as in the 
phrase opinion of counsel, that is, a 
written opinion on a case obtained from 
a barrister before whom the facts have 
been laid. All judges are selected from 
the barristers. A barrister cannot main¬ 
tain an action for his fees, which are con¬ 
sidered purely honorary. A revising bar¬ 
rister is a barrister appointed to revise 
the list of persons in any locality who 
have a vote for a member of Parliament. 
The term corresponding to barrister is 
in Scotland advocate, in the United 
States counselor-at-law; but the posi¬ 
tion of the latter is not quite the same. 
Barros (bar'os), Joao de, a Portu¬ 
guese historian; born in 1496. 
He was attached to the court of King 
Emmanuel, who, after the publication in 
1520 of Barros’s romance, The Emperor 
Clarimond, urged him to undertake a 
history of the Portuguese in India, which 
appeared thirty-two years later. King 
John III appointed Barros governor of 
the Portuguese settlements in Guinea, 
and general agent for these colonies, fur¬ 
ther presenting him in 1530 with the 


province of Maranham in Brazil, for the 
purpose of colonization. For his losses 
by the last enterprise the king indemnified 
him, and he died in retirement in 1570. 
Besides his standard work, Asia Portu- 
guesa, he wrote a moral dialogue on com¬ 
promise, and the first Portuguese Gram¬ 
mar. 

"Rflrrnua (bar-ro'sa), a village of 
-Ddiiu&d, Spain> near the g w coagt of 

Andalusia, near which General Graham, 
when abandoned by the Spaniards, de¬ 
feated a superior French force in 1811. 
BarrOW (bar'ro), a river in the south¬ 
east of Ireland, province Lein¬ 
ster, rising on the borders of the King’s 
and Queen’s Counties, and after a south¬ 
erly course joining the Suir in forming 
Waterford harbor. It is next in impor¬ 
tance to the Shannon, and is navigable 
for vessels of 200 tons for 25 miles above 
the sea. 

BarrOW -^ SAAC » an eminent English 
, mathematician and divine, 
born in London in 1630, studied at the 
Charterhouse and at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, of which he became a fellow 
in 1649. After a course of medical 
studies he turned to divinity, mathe¬ 
matics, and astronomy, graduated anew 
at Oxford in 1652, and, failing to obtain 
the Cambridge Greek professorship, 
went abroad. In 1659 he was ordained; 
in 1660 elected Greek professor at Cam¬ 
bridge ; in 1662 professor of geometry in 
Gresham College ; and in 1663 Lucasian 
professor of mathematics at Cambridge, a 
post which he resigned to Newton in 1669. 
In 1670 he was created D.D., in 1672 
master of Trinity College, and in 
1675, vice-chancellor of Cambridge Uni¬ 
versity. He died in 1677. His principal 
mathematical works (written in Latin) 
were: Euclidis Elementa, 1655; Euclidis 
Data, 1657; Mathematics Lectiones, 
1664; Lectiones Optics. 1669; Lec¬ 
tiones Geometries, 1670; Archimedis 
Opera; Apollonii Conicorum, lib. iv.; 
Theodosii Spherica, 1675. All his Eng¬ 
lish works, which are theological, were 
left in MS., and published by Dr. Tillot- 
son in 1685. As a mathematician Bar- 
row was deemed inferior only to Newton. 
Barrow Sir John, geographer and 
’ man of letters, born in 1764 
in Lancashire. At the age of sixteen 
he went in a whaler to Greenland ; was 
subsequently teacher of mathematics in 
a school at Greenwich; and was sent 
with Lord Macartney in his embassy to 
China in 1792, to take charge of philo¬ 
sophical instruments for presentation to 
the Chinese emperor. His account of 
this journey was of great value, and not 
less so was the account of his travels 



Barrow-in-Furness 


Barry 


in South Africa, whither he went in 
1797 as secretary to Macartney. In 
1804 he was appointed second secretary 
to the admiralty, a post occupied by him 
for forty years. In 1835 he was made 
a baronet; and he died in 1848, three 
years after his retirement. Besides the 
accounts of his own travels he published 
lives of Earl Macartney, Lord Anson, 
Lord Howe, and Drake; Voyages of Dis¬ 
covery and Research toithin the Arctic 
Regions; an autobiography of himself 
written at the age of eighty-three, etc. 

'row-in-Fur'ness, a “81^ “ d 

’ parliam e nt- 
ary borough of Lancashire, in the dis¬ 
trict of Furness, opposite the island of 
Walney, a town that had increased from a 
fishing hamlet with 100 inhabitants in 
1848 to a town of 63,775 inhabitants in 
1911. Its prosperity is due to the mines 
of red hematite iron-ore which abounds 
in the district, and to the railway ren¬ 
dering its excellent natural harbor avail¬ 
able. It has several large docks, and an 
extensive trade in timber, cattle, grain, 
flour, iron-ore and pig-iron. It has nu¬ 
merous blast-furnaces, and one of the 
largest Bessemer-steel works in the 
world. Besides iron-works a large 
business is done in shipbuilding, the 
making of railway wagons and rolling 
stock, ropes, sails, bricks, etc. 

mounds of earth or stones 
Ami xu o, raised to mark the resting 
place of the dead, and distinguished, 
according to their shape, as long, bowl, 



Bowl Barrow. 

bell, cone, broad barrows. The practice 
of barrow-burial is of unknown antiquity 
and almost universal, barrows being 
found all over Europe, in Northern 



Long Barrow. 


Africa, Asia Minor, and elsewhere in 
Asia, and North America. In the ear¬ 
liest barrows the inclosed bodies were 
simply laid upon the ground, with stone 


or bene implements and weapons beside 
them. In barrows of later date the re¬ 
mains are generally inclosed in a stone 
cist. Frequently cremation preceded 



Twin Barrow. 


the erection of the barrow, the ashes 
being inclosed in an urn or cist. A de¬ 
tailed description of an ancient barrow- 
burial is given in the Anglo-Saxon poem 
Beowulf and the accounts of the obse¬ 
quies of Hector and Achilles in the Iliad 
and Odyssey are well known. 

"Rq wnixi S'f’T’fi11 connecting 

ijarrow OXiaib, channel between 
Lancaster Sound and Baffin Bay on the 
e. and the Polar Ocean on the w. Of 
great depth, with rocky and rugged 
shores. Named after Sir John Barrow. 
"Rar'rv Sir Charles, an English ar- 
jjctx i y , chitect, born at London in 
1795. After executing numerous impor¬ 
tant buildings, such as the Reform Club¬ 
house, London, St. Edward’s School, Bir¬ 
mingham, etc., he was appointed archi¬ 
tect of the new Houses of Parliament at 
Westminster, a noble pile, with the exe¬ 
cution of which he was occupied for 
more than twenty-four years. He was 
knighted in 1852, and died suddenly in 
1860. His son, Edward Middleton, 
R. A. (1830-1880), was also a dis¬ 
tinguished architect, and produced many 
important buildings. 

Barry, Comtesse du. See Du Barry. 


"Rflrrv f!nrn wall tlie assumed name 

.carry Cornwall, of Bryan Waller 

Proctor. 

"Rflrrv James, a painter and writer, 
J > born at Cork, Ireland, in 1741, 
studied abroad with the aid of Burke; 
was elected Royal Academician on his 
return; and worked seven years on the 
paintings for the hall of the Society 
for the Encouragement of the Arts. In 
1773 he published his Inquiry into the 
Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the 
Increase of the Arts in England; and in 
1782 was elected professor of painting 
to the Academy. He was expelled in 
1797 on the ground of his authorship of 
the Letter to the Society of Dilettanti. 
His chief painting was his Victors at 
Olympia. He died in 1806. 

BarrV J° HN » a naval officer of the 
J 9 American revolution, born in 








Bar-shot 


Barthez 


Co. Wexford, Ireland, in 1745. Was out from Tripoli in February, 1850, and 
captain of a merchantman trading to in spite of the death both of Richardson 
Philadelphia when the war broke out; and Overweg, Barth did not return to 
appointed captain of the brig, hexing- Tripoli till the autumn of 1855. His ex- 
ton, in February, 1776, captured the ploration, which extended over an area 
first prize the following April; won fame of about 2,000,000 square miles, deter- 
by capturing the armed schooner mined the course of the Niger and the 
Alert in Delaware Bay with a few true nature of the Sahara. The English 
men in some rowboats; continued in ac- account of it was entitled Travels and 
tive and successful service until the Discoveries in North and Central Africa 
close of the war, and was victor in the .(5 vols. 1857-58). An important work 
last battle of the war in 1782. When on the African languages was left un- 
Congress provided for a United States finished. 

navy, he was selected, in 1794, as its ■Ra-rtLpIp™ v (bar-tal-me), Jean 
first commander, and is therefore justly JJ<XL Jacques, a French au- 

called the Father of the American Navy, thor, born in 1716. He was educated un¬ 
tie died at Philadelphia in 1S03. A der the Jesuits, for holy orders, but de¬ 
statue in his honor has been erected in clined all offers of clerical promotion above 
Independence Square, Philadelphia. the rank of Abbe. He gained consider- 

Bar-shot a . double-headed shot con- able repute as a worker in philology and 
, sisting of two pieces con- archaeology; and after his appointment 
nected by a bar. as director of the Royal Cabinet of 

Bart Harth, or Baert (bart), Jean, Medals, in 1753, spent some time travel- 
9 a famous French sailor, born at ing in Italy, collecting medals and an- 
Dunkirk, 1650, the son of a poor fisher- Equities. His best-known work, not 
man. He became captain of a privateer, inaptly characterized by himself as an 
and after some brilliant exploits was ap- unwieldy compilation, was the Travels 
pointed captain in the royal navy. In 0 f the Younger Anacharsis in Greece. 
recognition of his further services he was It was very popular and was translated 
made commodore, subsequently receiving into various tongues. Though taking no 
letters of nobility. Brusque, if not vulgar part in the revolution he was arrested 
in manner, and ridiculed by the court on a charge of aristocracy in 1793, but 
for his indifference to ceremony, he made was set at liberty, and subsequently of- 
the navy of the nation everywhere re- fered the post of librarian of the Na- 
spected, and furnished some of the most tional Library. He died in 1795. 
striking chapters in the romance of naval 'D Qv fUAl- mTr Qm'-nf TTiloi*^ (b a r- 
warfare. After the peace of Ryswick he tfartnelmy-bamt-Ullaire J al _ m g . 

lived quietly at Dunkirk, and died there sa9 -te-lar), Jules, a French scholar and 
while equipping a fleet to take part m statesman, born in 1805; died in 1887. 
the war of the Spanish Succession, 1(02. He was professor of Greek and Latin 
BartaS ( bar_ta )» Guillaume de Sal- philosophy in the College of France, but 
luste du, a French poet, resigned the chair after the coup d’etat 
termed ‘ the divine ’ by contemporary of 1852 an j refused to take the oaths; 
English writers ; born in 1544. Principal was reappointed in 1862; in 1869 was re¬ 
work, La Sepmame ( Ihe Week ), a turned to the Corps Legislatif; after the 
poem on the creation, translated into revolution was a member of the National 
English by Sylvester. _ Died of wounds Assembly; was elected senator for life 
received at Ivry, in 1590. in 1875. He published a translation of 

Bartfeld (bart'felt), or Bartfo, an Aristotle, and works on Buddhism, 
old town, Hungary, county Mohammed and Mohammedanism, the 
of Saros, on the Tepl, with mineral Vedas, etc. 

springs in the neighborhood. Pop. 6100. T5 nr f| 1A7 ’ (bdr-ta), Paul Joseph, an 
Barth ( bart ), Heinrich, an African - Ddl lIlc ^ eminent French physician, 
traveler, born at Hamburg in born at Montpellier 1734 ; died 1806. At 
1821; died in 1865. He was graduated Montpellier he founded a medical school, 
at the University of Berlin as Ph.D. in which acquired a reputation throughout 
1844; and set out in 1845 to explore all Europe. Having settled in Paris, 
all the countries bordering on the Medi- he was appointed by the king consulting 
terranean. The first volume of his physican, and by the Duke of Orleans 
Wanderungen durch die Kiistenldnder his first physician. The revolution de- 
des Mittelmeeres was published in 1849, prived him of the greatest part of his 
in which year he was invited by the fortune and drove him from Paris, but 
English government to join Dr. Overweg Napoleon brought him forth again, and 
in accompanying Richardson’s expedition loaded him in his advanced age with 
to Central Africa. The expedition set dignities. Among his numerous writings 
26—1 



Bartholdi 


Bartholomew’s Hospital 


may be mentioned Nouvelle Mecanique 
des Mouvemens de VHomme et des Ani- 
maux; Traitement des Maladies Gout- 
teuses; Consultation de Medecine, etc. 

"RartlinlrH (bar-tol'de), Auguste, a 
i^artnoiai French sculptor, born in 

1833; best known as the artist of the 
colossal statue of Liberty Enlightening 
the World , erected on one of the islands 
in the harbor of New York. Died 
October 4, 1904. 

Bartholin (bar'to-lin), Kaspar, 
x>dl bliuim a Swedish writer, born in 

1585; died in 1630. He studied medicine, 
philosophy, and theology; was made 
Doctor of Medicine at Basel in 1610, 
rector of the University of Copenhagen 
1618, and professor of theology 1624. 
His Institutiones Anatomicce was for 
long a standard text-book in the uni¬ 
versities. His son, Thomas, born at 
Copenhagen 1616, died 1680, was equally 
celebrated as a philologist, naturalist, 
and physician. He was professor of 
anatomy at Copenhagen, 1648; physician 
to the king, Christian V., in 1670; and 
councilor of state, 1675. His sons, 
Kaspar (born 1654, died 1704) and 
Thomas (born 1659, died 1690) were 
also highly distinguished—the first as an 
anatomist, the other as an archmolo- 
gist. 

Bartholomew 

the same person as Nathanael, mentioned 
in the Gospel of St. John as an upright 
Israelite and one of the first disciples 
of Jesus. He is said to have taught 
Christianity in the south of Arabia, into 
which, according to Eusebius, he carried 
the Gospel of St. Matthew in the He¬ 
brew language and to have suffered 
martyrdom. The ancient church had an 
apocryphal gospel bearing his name, of 
which nothing has been preserved. A 
festival is held to his memory on 24th 
August. 

Bartholomew, f h T -> to 

the Leeward group, belonging to France, 
to which it was transferred by Sweden 
in 1878; about 24 miles in circumference. 
It produces some tobacco, sugar, cotton, 
indigo, etc. Pop. about 3000. The only 
town is Gustavia. 

Bartholomew Fair,? celebrated 

’fair, e s t a b- 
lished in the reign of Henry I, for¬ 
merly held in West Smithfield, London, 
on St. Bartholomew’s Day (Aug. 24, 
o. s.), but abolished since 1855. 

Bartholomew’s Day, St ;» a feast 

* 9 o f the 
Church of Rome, celebrated (August 24) 
in honor of St. Bartholomew. 


Bartholomew, St., Massacre of, 

the slaughter of the French Protestants 
or Huguenots, which began in Paris on 
24th August, 1572, under secret orders 
from Charles IX, at the instigation of 
his mother, Catharine de Medici, and 
in which, according to Sully, 70,000 
Huguenots, including women and chil¬ 
dren, were murdered in France. Atro¬ 
cious as the matter was, recent research 
has shown this figure to be a gross ex¬ 
aggeration. During the minority of 
Charles and the regency of his mother 
a long war raged in France between the 
Catholics and Huguenots, the leaders of 
the latter being the Prince of Cond6 
and Admiral Coligny. In 1570 over¬ 
tures were made by the court to the 
Huguenots, which resulted in a treaty 
of peace. The king appeared to have 
entirely disengaged himself from the in¬ 
fluence of the Guises and his mother; 
he invited Coligny to his court, and 
honored him as a father. It is prob¬ 
able that the queen mother premeditated 
the murder of the admiral and other 
leaders of his party, but not a general 
massacre. The king’s sister had just 
been married to Henry, King of Navarre. 
On Aug. 22 a shot from a window 
wounded the admiral. The king hastened 
to visit him, and swore to punish the 
author of the villainy; but on the same 
day he was induced by his mother to 
believe that the admiral had designs on 
his life. ‘ God’s death ! ’ he exclaimed ; 
‘ kill the admiral; and not only him, but 
all the Huguenots; let none remain to 
disturb us.’ The following night Cath¬ 
arine held the bloody council, which 
fixed the execution for the night of St. 
Bartholomew, August 24, 1572. After 
the assassination of Coligny a bell from 
the tower of the royal palace at mid¬ 
night gave to the assembled companies 
of burghers the signal for the general 
massacre of the Huguenots. The Prince 
of Cond6 and the King of Navarre saved 
their lives by going to mass and pre¬ 
tending to embrace the Catholic religion. 
By the king’s orders the massacre was 
extended throughout the whole kingdom; 
and the horrible slaughter continued 
for thirty days in almost all the prov¬ 
inces. 

Bartholomew’s Hospital, ®t, 

of the great hospitals of London, formerly 
the priory of St. Bartholomew, and 
made a hospital by Henry VIII in 1547. 
On an average, 6000 patients are an¬ 
nually admitted to the hospital, while 
about 100,000 out-patients are relieved 
by it. A medical school is attached to it. 




Bartizan 


Barton 


"Rartiyan (bar'ti-zan), a small over- 

isaruzan hanging turret pierced 

with one or more apertures for archers, 
projecting generally from the angles on 
the top of a tower, or from the parapet, 
or elsewhere, as in a medieval castle. 
"Rfirtlpcvillp (bar’tlz-vil), a town 

isartiesvine of Washington c 0 ., 

Oklahoma, 30 miles s. w. of Coffeyville, 
Kansas. It is in the center of a 
petroleum and natural gas belt, and has 
smelters, glass and cement factories, 
etc. Pop. 6181. 

■Rov+'loH William Henry, an Eng- 
Udll letl, lish artist , born in 1809; 

died on a voyage from Malta to Marseilles 
1854. He traveled extensively abroad, 
and the illustrated works descriptive of 
the countries visited by him (Switzer¬ 
land, the Bosphorus and the Danube, 
Syria and Palestine, Egypt, Canada, 
United States, etc.) obtained great success 
with the public, the engravings being 
from sketches by his own pencil. 

■Rov+nli-m (bar-to-le'ne), Lorenzo, a 
■Ddl lUHIlI ce i e brated Italian sculp¬ 
tor, born at Florence about 1778; died in 
1850. He studied and worked in Paris, 
and was patronized by Napoleon. On 
the fall of the empire he returned to 
Florence, where he continued to exercise 
his profession. Among his greater works 
may be mentioned his groups of Charity, 
and Hercules and Lycas, a colossal bust 
of Napoleon, and the beautiful monu¬ 
ment in the cathedral of Lausanne, 
which was erected in memory of Lady 
Stratford Canning. Bartolini ranks next 
to Canova among modern Italian sculp¬ 
tors. 

‘Rarfnlnmmpn (bar-to-lom-mao), 

uarxoiomilieu Pra See Baccio 

della Porta. 

"Rp vtnl 0771 (-lot'se), Francisco, a 
LU1UH1 distinguis hed engraver 

born at Florence in 1725, or, according 
to others, in 1730; died at Lisbon in 
1813. In Venice, in Florence, and in 
Milan he etched several pieces on sacred 
subjects, and then went to London, where 
he received great encouragement. After 
forty years’ residence in London he went 
to Lisbon on the invitation of the Prince 
Regent of Portugal to take the superin¬ 
tendence of a school of engravers, and 
remained there till his death. 

■Rar'tnn Andrew, one of Scotland’s 
luiij g rg |. g rea t naval com¬ 
manders ; flourished during the reign of 
James IV, and belonged to a family 
which for two generations had produced 
able and successful seamen. In 1497 
he commanded the escort which accom¬ 
panied Perkin Warbeck from - Scotland. 
After doing considerable damage to Eng¬ 


lish shipping he was killed in an engage¬ 
ment with two ships which had been 
specially fitted out to fight against him 
(1512). 

■Rar+nn Bernard, known as the 
f Quaker poet, born at London 
in 1784; died in 1849. In 1806 he re¬ 
moved to Woodbridge, in Suffolk, where 
he was long clerk in a bank. He pub¬ 
lished Metrical Effusions (1812) ; Poems 
by an Amateur (1818) ; Poems (1820) ; 
Napoleon, and other Poems (1822) ; 
Poetic Vigils (1824) ; Devotional Verses 
(1826) ; A New Year's Eve, and other 
Poems (1828) ; besides many contribu¬ 
tions to the annuals and magazines. His 
poetry, though deficient in force, is 
pleasing, fluent, and graceful. 

"Rnrtfvn (bar'tun), Clara, philanthro- 
u 1 pist, born at Oxford, Massa¬ 
chusetts, in 1830. She began her career 
as a teacher, and in 1854 became a 
clerk in the patent office at Washington. 
This position she resigned when the Civil 
war broke out, when she became a 
volunteer nurse in the army hospitals 
and on the battlefield. In 1870, during 
the Franco-German war, she aided the 
Grand Duchess of Baden in preparing 
military hospitals, assisted the Red 
Cross Society, and superintended the 
distribution of work to the poor of 
Strasburg in 1871 and of Paris in 1872. 
At the close of the war, she was decorated 
with the Golden Cross of Baden and 
the Iron Cross of Germany. On the 
organization of the American Red Cross 
Society in 1881, she was made its 
President. In 1889 she had charge of 
movements in behalf of sufferers from 
the flood at Johnstown, Pa.; in 1892 
distributed relief to the Russian famine 
sufferers; in 1896 personally directed 
relief measures at the scenes of the 
Armenian massacres; in 1898 took relief 
to the Cuban reconcentrados, and per¬ 
formed field work during the war with 
Spain; and in 1900 undertook to direct 
the relief of sufferers at Galveston, but 
broke down physically. In 1903 she 
undertook the reorganization of the 
Red Cross Society in the United States. 
She has written History of the Red 
Cross in Peace and War, America's Re¬ 
lief Expedition to Asia Minor, Story of 
My Childhood, etc. 

"Rnr+nn Elizabeth, a country girl of 

uarton, A]dington> in Kent (com _ 

monly called the Holy Maid of Kent), 
who gained some notoriety in the reign 
of Henry VIII. She was subject to 
epileptic fits, and was persuaded by cer¬ 
tain priests that she was a prophetess in¬ 
spired by God. Among other things she 
prophesied that Henry, if he persisted in 



Barton-upon-Humber 


Basalt 


his purpose of divorce and second mar¬ 
riage, would not be king for seven months 
longer, and would die a shameful death, 
and be succeeded by Catherine’s daugh¬ 
ter. On arrest she confessed herself an 
imposter, and she and six others were 
executed May 5, 1534. 

Barton-upon-Humber, l^nd! 

in Lincolnshire, on the Humber. It con¬ 
tains two old churches, one of which is 
an undoubted specimen of Anglo-Saxon 
architecture. Pop. (1911) 6676. 
"Rav'fvom John, botanist, born in 
J5ar tram > Delaware Co., Pennsyl¬ 
vania in 1699. He engaged in botanical 
study and so effectively that Linnaeus 
pronounced him ‘ the greatest natural 
botanist in the world.’ He established a 
botanical garden on the Schuylkill, near 
Philadelphia, which he enriched with 
rare plants, and which is now a public 
garden. He was made a member of 
several learned societies and appointed 
American botanist to George III, which 
position he held till his death in 1777. 
He contributed several papers to the 
Philosophical Transactions. — William 
Bartram, his son, born 1739, continued 
the studies of the father, and traveled 
through the South in search of new 
plants, writing a work in description 
of his journey. He made the most com¬ 
plete list of American birds before the 
work of Wilson. He died in 1823. 
"Rart^rh (barch), Karl Friedrich, one 
1 of the most profound students 
of the old German and Romance litera¬ 
tures, was born at Sprottan, Germany, in 
1832; died in 1888. He studied at Berlin, 
Paris. Oxford, etc., and was professor of 
philology in Rostock and Heidelberg. 
His labors have been of immense service 
in elucidating the older literature and 
language of his native country as well 
as in the field of the Romance tongues. 
He edited a great number of German, 
Romance and French poems, tales, etc., 
of the early medieval period and pub¬ 
lished various text-books and critical 
treatises on the subject of his studies. 
Among his publications were editions of 
the Nib clung enlied , Walther Von der 
V ogelweide, Kudrun, etc.; Chrestomathie 
de Vancien Frangais ; Provengalisches 
Lescbuch; translations of Burns, of 
Dante, etc. 

Bam (ba'ro), a woolly substance used 
for caulking ships, stuffing cush¬ 
ions, etc., found at the base of the leaves 
of an East India sago palm. 

Baruch (ba'ruk; literally ‘blessed’), 
a Hebrew scribe, friend and 
assistant to the prophet Jeremiah. At 
the captivity, after the destruction of 


Jerusalem, Jeremiah and Baruch were 
permitted to remain in Palestine, but 
were afterwards carried into Egypt, b. c. 
588. His subsequent life is unknown. 
One of the apocryphal books bears the 
name of Baruch. The Council of Trent 
gave it a place in the canon, but its 
authenticity wns not admitted either by 
the ancient Jews or the early Christian 
fathers. 

Barwood, L dyewood obtain , ed . from 

> Pterocarpus angolensis, a 
tall tree of West Africa. It is chiefly 
used for giving orange-red dyes on cotton 
yarns. See Camwood. 

"Rflrvta (ba-rl'ta), oxide of barium, 
JJCU.J \j<x ca ji e( j a | so heavy earth, from 
its being the heaviest of the earths, its 
specific gravity being 4.7. It is generally 
found in combination with sulphuric and 
carbonic acids, forming sulphate and 
carbonate of baryta, the former of which 
is called heavy-spar. Baryta is a gray 
powder, has a sharp, caustic, alkaline 
taste, and a strong affinity for water, 
and forms a hydrate with that element. 
It forms white salts with the acids, all 
of which are poisonous except the sul¬ 
phate. Several mixtures of sulphate of 
baryta and white lead are manufactured, 
and are used as white pigments, or it 
may be used alone. Carbonate of baryta, 
which in the natural state is known as 
witherite, is also used as the base of 
certain colors. The nitrate is used in 
pyrotechny, in the preparation of green 
fireworks, the metal barium burning with 
a green flame. 

Basalt (ha-salt'), a well-known ig¬ 
neous rock occurring in the 
ancient trap and the recent volcanic 
series of rocks, but most abundantly in 
the former. It is a fine-grained heavy, 
crystalline rock, consist¬ 
ing of felspar, augite, and 
magnetic iron, and some¬ 
times contains a little 
olivine. Basalt is amor¬ 
phous, columnar, tabu¬ 
lar, or globular. The 
columnar form is straight 
or curved, perpendicular 
or inclined, sometimes 
nearly horizontal; the 
diameter of the columns 
from 3 to 18 inches, 
sometimes with trans- “ca^ewaj” 
verse semisphencal joints, 
in which the convex part of one is in¬ 
serted in the concavity of another; and 
the height from 5 feet to 150. The 
forms of the columns generally are pen¬ 
tagonal, hexagonal, or octagonal. When 
decomposed it is found also in round 
masses, either spherical or compressed 










BASEBALL 

A World’s Series Championship game played at Shibe Park, Philadelphia 
















Baschi 


Baseball 


and lenticular. These rounded masses 
are sometimes composed of concentric 
layers, with a nucleus, and sometimes 
of prisms radiating from a center. Fin- 
gal's Cave, in the island of Staffa, fur¬ 
nishes a remarkable instance of basaltic 
columns. The pillars of the Giant’s 



Basalt—Lot’s Wife, St. Helena. 

Causeway, Ireland, composed of this 
stone, and exposed to the roughest sea 
for ages, have their angles as perfect as 
those at a distance from the waves. 
The Palisades, on the Hudson at New 
York, are composed of basalt. Basalt 
often assumes curious and fantastic 
forms, as for example the mass popu¬ 
larly known as * Sampson’s Ribs ’ at 
Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh. 

"RacpTri (bsis'ke), Matteo. an Italian 
XfdaLiix ]yji nor ite friar of the convent 
of Montefalcone, founder and first gen¬ 
eral of the Capuchin branch of the 
Franciscans. He died at Venice in 1552. 
'Racpinpf BasTnet or Bas'net, a 
.oci&Liiicu, light helmet, sometimes 

with, but more frequently without a visor, 
in general use for English infantry in the 
reigns of Edward II and III and 
Richard II. 

Poc'enm John, an American author, 
URb LOIIlj born at G e neva, New York, 

in 1827; graduated at Williams College 
in 1849 and at Andover Seminary in 


1855; professor of rhetoric at Williams 
College 1855-74; president of the Uni¬ 
versity of Wisconsin 1874-87; after¬ 
wards professor of political science at 
Williams. His works include Philosophy 
of Rhetoric, Principles of Psychology, 
Philosophy of Religion, Ethics, Natural 
Theology, The Science of Mind, etc. 

BRS6 (kas), in architecture, that part 
of a column between the top 
of the pedestal and the bottom of the 
shaft; where there is no pedestal, the 
part between the bottom of the column 
and the pavement. The term is also 
applied to the lower projecting part of 
the wall of a room, consisting of a 
plinth and its moldings. 

Base in chemistr y, a term applied to 
9 the elements or compound sub¬ 
stances which unite with acids to form 
salts. 

Base or ^ ASIS » a term in tactics, sig- 
nifying the original line on which 
an offensive army forms; the frontier of 
a country, a river, or any safe position 
from which an army takes the field 
to invade an enemy’s country; upon 
which it depends for its supplies, rein¬ 
forcements, etc.; to which it sends back 
its sick and wounded; and upon which 
it would generally fall back in case of 
reverse and retreat. 

■RccpRall a game played with a bat 
-DdbdUdii, and ball which has ob . 

tained a decidedly national character in 
the United States. It has a similarity to 
the English game of ‘ rounders,’ and is 
played by nine players a side. A dia¬ 
mond-shaped space of ground, 90 feet on 
the side, is marked out, the corners being 
the ‘ bases.’ One side takes the field, 
and the other sends a man to bat. When 
the field side take their places the 
‘ pitcher,’ standing inside the ground near 
the center and in front of the batsman, 
delivers a ball to the batsman, who 
stands at the * home base,’ and tries to 
drive it out of the reach of the fielders, 
and far enough out of the field to enable 
him to run to the first base, or more if 
possible. Another batsman takes his 
place and he seeks to reach other bases 
as the game goes on. A round of the 
four bases scores a run. If he is touched 
by the ball in the hand of a fielder 
before reaching a base, he is out, and 
when three on his side are put out, the 
field side takes the bat. Nine of these 
innings make a game, which the highest 
score wins. The bat is of a tapering 
cylindrical shape, the outer end being 
the thicker, not more than inches in 
diameter nor more than 42 inches 
long. The ball is about 9 inches in cir¬ 
cumference and somewhat elastic. 









Basedow 


Basel 


Basedow ( ba ' ze *do)> John Bernhard, the valuable public library, pictures, etc. 

German educationalist, born The industries embrace silk ribbons (8000 
1723; died 1790. Under the auspices of hands employed), tanning, paper, 
the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau he opened, aniline dyes, brewing, etc.; and the ad- 
in 1774, an educational institution which vantageous position of Basel, a little 
he called the Philanthropin, a school below where the Rhine becomes navi- 
free from sectarian bias, and in which gable and at the terminus of the French 
the pupils were to be disciplined in all and German railways, has made it the 
studies—physical, intellectual, and moral, emporium of a most important trade. 
This school led to the establishment of At Basel was signed the treaty of peace 
many similar ones, though Basedow re- between France and Prussia, April 5, 
tired from it in 1778. The chief feature and that between France and Spain, 
of Basedow’s system is the full develop- July 22, 1795. Pop. 129,470. 
ment of the faculties of the young at Pocgl Council of, a great non-cecumen- 
which he aspired, in pursuance of the ical council of the church con- 

notions of Locke and Rousseau. voked by Pope Martin V and his suc- 

Basel (ba'zl) 5 Fr. Bale), a canton cessor Eugenius IV. It was opened 14th 
and city of Switzerland. The Dec., 1431, under the presidency of the 
canton borders on Alsace and Baden, has Cardinal Legate Juliano Cesarini of St. 
an area of 176 sq. miles and a pop. of Angelo. The objects of its deliberations 
180,000, nearly all speaking German, were to extirpate heresies (that of the 
It is divided into two half-cantons, Basel Hussites in particular), to unite all Chris- 



Basel, from above the Townw 


city (Basel-stadt) and Basel country 
(Basel-Landschaft). The former con¬ 
sists of the city and its precincts, the 
remainder of the canton forming Basel- 
Landschaft, the capital of which is Lies- 
tal. The city of Basel is 43 m. N. of 
Bern, and consists of two parts on oppo¬ 
site sides of the Rhine, and communicat¬ 
ing by three bridges, one of them an 
ancient wooden structure; in the older 
portions is irregularly built with narrow 
streets; has an ancient cathedral, 
founded 1010, containing the tombs of 
Erasmus and other eminent persons; a 
university, founded in 1459; a seminary 
for missionaries; a museum containing 


tian nations under the Catholic Church, 
to put a stop to wars between Christian 
princes, and to reform the church. But 
its first steps towards an absolute as¬ 
sertion of conciliar supremacy were dis¬ 
pleasing to the pope, who authorized the 
cardinal legate to dissolve the council. 
That body opposed the pretensions of the, 
pope, and, notwithstanding his repeated 
orders to remove to Italy, continued its 
deliberations under the protection of the 
emperor Sigismund, of the German 
princes, and of France. On the pope 
continuing to issue bulls for its dissolu¬ 
tion the council commenced a formal 
process against him, and cited him to ap- 











Base-level 


Basil 


pear at its bar. On his refusal to comply 
with this demand the council declared 
him guilty of contumacy, and, after 
Eugenius had opened a counter-synod at 
Ferrara, decreed his suspension from the 
papal chair (Jan. 24, 1438). The re¬ 
moval of Eugenius, however, seemed so 
impracticable, that some prelates, who 
till then had been the boldest and most 
influential speakers in the council, in¬ 
cluding the Cardinal Legate Juliano, 
left Basel, and went over to the party 
of Eugenius. The Archbishop of Arles, 
Cardinal Louis Allemand, was now made 
first president of the council, and directed 
its proceedings with much vigor. In 
May, 1439. it declared Eugenius, on 
account of his disobedience of its decrees, 
a heretic, and formally deposed him. 
Excommunicated by Eugenius, they pro¬ 
ceeded, in a regular conclave, to elect 
the duke Amadeus of Savoy to the papal 
chair. Felix V—the name he adopted 
—was acknowledged by only a few 
princes, cities, and universities. After 
this the moral power of the council de¬ 
clined ; its last formal session was held 
May 16, 1443, though it was not techni¬ 
cally dissolved till May 7, 1449, when it 
gave in its adhesion to Nicholas V, the 
successor of Eugenius. The decrees of 
the Council of Basel are admitted into 
none of the Roman collections, and are 
considered of no authority by the Roman 
lawyers. They were regarded, however, 
as of authority in points of canon law in 
France and Germany, as their regula¬ 
tions for the reformation of the church 
were soon adopted in the pragmatic sanc¬ 
tions of both countries, and, as far as they 
regarded clerical discipline, were enforced. 
TIqcp-IpvpI ^e lowest level to which a 
UdbC-icvci, s t ream j s capable of erod¬ 
ing the land, any deeper erosion being 
prevented by the height of its point of 
discharge. A base-level plain is pro¬ 
duced when its slopes are very gentle 
and the eroding power of rains and 
streams has practically ceased. 

"Rqcp.1i* tip in surveying, a straight line 
JDdbe AAIAC > measured with the utmost 
precision to form the starting-point of 
the triangulation of a country or district. 
See also Base. 

TOa'clian the name in Scripture for a 
■°d Midii, s j n g U i ar iy rich tract of coun¬ 
try lying beyond the Jordan between 
Mount Hermon and the land of Gilead. 
At the time of the Exodus it was inhab¬ 
ited by Amorites, who were overpowered 
by the Israelites, and the land assigned 
to the half-tribe of Manasseh. The dis¬ 
trict was, and yet is, famous for its oak 
forests and its cattle. Remains of an¬ 
cient cities are common. 


"RacTiaw (ba-shp/), Basha, an obso- 

isasnaw lete form of Pasha. 

Bashi (ha-she') or Bata'nes Islands, 
a group of islands in the Chin¬ 
ese Sea between Luzon and Formosa, 
Ion. 122° e. ; lat. 20° 28' to 20° 55' N. 
They were discovered by Dampier in 
1687, and form a section of the Philippine 
group. The largest island is Batan, with 
a population of 12,000. 

Bashi-Bazooks <bash'i-ba-*8kz), ir- 

regular troops in 
the Turkish army. They are mostly 
Asiatics, and have had to be disarmed 
several times by the regular troops 
on account of the barbarities by which 
they have rendered themselves infam¬ 
ous. 


TiacliVirc (bash'kirs), a tribe of Fin* 

jjdsnKirs nish or of Tatar origin< 

inhabiting the Russian governments of 
Ufa, Orenburg, Perm, and Samara. 
They formerly roamed about under their 
own princes in Southern Siberia, but in 
1556 they voluntarily placed themselves 
under the Russian scepter. They are 
nominally Mohammedans, and live by 
hunting, cattle-rearing, breeding of cattle 
and horses, and keeping of bees. They 
are rude and warlike and partially 
nomadic. They number about 750,- 
000 . 

Basic Slag-, th , e . s > a ? or r f et . use matter 

o’ which is got in making 
basic steel, and which, from the phos¬ 
phate of lime it contains, is a valuable 
fertilizer. 


Basic Steel. See Steel. 


"Rci1 (baz'il), the name of two emper- 
‘ Dct&1A ors. See Basilius. 

Basil a ^kiate plant, Ocymum Ba- 
9 silicum, a native of India, much 
used in cookery, especially in France, 
and known more particularly as sweet or 
common basil. Bush or lesser basil is 
O. minimum; wild basil belongs to a 
different genus, being the Calamintha 
Clinopodium. 

"Rnstil St., called the Great , one of 
a 9 the Greek fathers, was born in 
329, and made in 370 Bishop of Caesarea 
in Cappadocia, where he died in 379. 
He was distinguished by his efforts for 
the regulation of clerical discipline, and 
above all, his endeavors for the pro¬ 
motion of monastic life. The Greek 
Church honors him as one of its most 
illustrious saints, and celebrates his fes¬ 
tival January 1. The vows of obedience, 
chastity, and poverty framed by St. Basil 
are essentially the rules of all the orders 
of Christendom, although he is particu¬ 
larly the father of the eastern, as St. 



Basilan 


Basilius I 


Benedict is the patriarch of the western 
orders. 

■Rocilon (ba-se-lan'), the principal 
.Dctbilclll i s ] anc ] 0 f j- be g u ] u Archipel¬ 
ago, now belonging to the Philippines, 
off the s.w. extremity of Mindanao, from 
which it is separated by the Strait of 
Basilan. It is about 42 m. in length by 
6 average breadth. Pop. about 5000. 
■Radlpa-n (bas-i-le'an) Manuscripts, 
two manuscripts of the 
Greek New Testament now in the library 
of Basel. (1) A nearly complete uncial 
copy of the Gospels of the eighth century; 
(2) a cursive copy of the whole New 
Testament except the Apocalypse, tenth 
century. 

"Ra cilia n (ba-sil'i-an) Liturgy, that 
JDdblllctli form for celebrat}ng tbe Eu¬ 
charist drawn up towards the close of the 
fourth century by Basil the Great, still 
used in the Greek Church. 

'Racilinu Mnnlrc monks who strict- 

isasman ivioiiks, ly follow the rules 

of St. Basil, chiefly belonging to the 
Greek Church. 

■Racilipa (ba-sil'i-ka), originally the 
JDdMllUd name applied by the Ro . 

mans to their public halls, either of jus¬ 
tice, of exchange, or other business. The 
plan of the basilica was usually a rec¬ 
tangle divided into aisles by rows of 
columns, the middle aisle being the wid¬ 
est, with a semicircular apse at the end, 



Basilica of St. Peter, Rome. 


in which the tribunal was placed. The 
ground-plan of these buildings was gen¬ 
erally followed in the early Christian 
churches, which, therefore, long retained 
the name of basilica, and it is still ap¬ 
plied to some of the churches in Rome 
by way of distinction, and sometimes to 
other churches built in imitation of the 
Roman basilicas. 


Basilicata fe®*i' i ; ka ' t& V* a r 80 called 

Potenza, an Italian prov¬ 
ince, extending north from the Gulf ol 
Taranto, and corresponding pretty closelj 
with the ancient Lucania. Area 3841; 
sq. m.; pop. 491,55S. 


"Racilinnn (ba-sil'i-kon), a name of 
Jjdaiiil/Uii severa i ointments, the 

chief ingredients of which are wax, pitch, 
resin, and olive-oil. 

Basil'icon Do'ron <«*<? T g(if g 0 f ft) a 

book written by King James I in 1599, 
containing a collection of precepts of the 
art of government. It maintains the 
claim of the king to be sole head of the 
church. Printed at Edinburgh, 1603. 

"RacilirlAC (ba-sil'i-dez), an Alexan- 
Jjd.bIllU.Cb drjan Gnogtic who liyed 

under the reigns of Trajan, Adrian, and 
Antoninus, but the place of whose birth 
is unknown. He was well acquainted 
with Christianity, but mixed it up with 
the wildest dreams of the Gnostics, peo¬ 
pling the earth and the air with multi¬ 
tudes of ceons. His disciples (Basilid- 
ians) were numerous in Syria, Egypt, 
Italy, and Gaul, but they are scarcely 
heard of after the fourth century. 
"Raciliclr (bas'i-lisk), a fabulous crea- 
cta l biv ture f ormer iy believed to 

exist, and variously regarded as a kind 
of serpent, lizard, or dragon, and some¬ 
times identified with the cockatrice. It 
inhabited the deserts of Africa, and its 
breath and even its look was fatal. 
The name is now applied to a genus of 
saurian reptiles (Basiliscus ), belonging 
to the family Iguanidse, distinguished by 
an elevated crest or row of scales, erect- 
ible at pleasure, which, like the dorsal 
fins of some fishes, runs along the whole 
length of the back and tail. The mitred 
or hooded basilisk ( B . mitratus) is espe¬ 
cially remarkable for a membranous bag 
at the back of the head, of the size of a 
small hen’s egg, which can be inflated 
with air at pleasure. The other species 
have such hoods also, but of a less size. 
To this organ they owe their name, 
which recalls the basilisk of fable, 
though in reality they are exceedingly 
harmless and lively creatures. The B. 
amboinensis is a native of the Indian 
Archipelago, where it is much used for 
food. It frequents trees overhanging 
water, into which it drops when alarmed. 

Basilius I l!‘ a ‘ s ii' i '" s) : Em .P er »f of 

the East, born in Mace¬ 
donia a.d. 820; died in 886. He was 
of obscure origin, but having succeeded 
in gaining the favor of the Emperor 
Michael III, he became his colleague in 
the empire, 866. After the assassination 
of Michael in 867, Basilius became em¬ 
peror. Though he had worked his way 
to the throne by a series of crimes, he 
proved an able and equitable sovereign. 
The versatility, if not the depth, of his 
intellect is strikingly displayed in his 
Exhortations to his Son Leo, which are 
still extant. 






Basilius II 


Bas-relief 


Unci'!ill« TT Emperor of the East, 

isasinus li, born 958t died 1025 Qq 

the death of his father, the Emperor Ro- 
manus the Younger, in 963, he was kept 
out of the succession for twelve years 
by two usurpers. He began to reign in 
conjunction with his brother Constan¬ 
tine 975. His reign was almost a con¬ 
tinued scene of warfare, his most im¬ 
portant struggle being that which re¬ 
sulted in the conquest of Bulgaria, 1018. 
■Roc-in (ba'sin), in physical geography, 
.uaaxi tbe wbo | e tract of country 
drained by a river and its tributaries. 
The line dividing one river basin from 
another is the watershed, and by tracing 
the various watersheds we divide each 
country into its constituent basins. The 
basin of a loch or sea consists of the 
basins of all the rivers which run into 
it.—In geology a basin is any dipping or 
disposition of strata towards a common 
axis or center, due to upheaval and sub¬ 
sidence. It is sometimes used almost 
synonymously with ‘ formation ’ to ex¬ 
press the deposits lying in a certain cav¬ 
ity or depression in older rocks. The 
‘ Paris basin ’ and ‘ London basin ’ are 
familiar instances. 

■Rcmi-ncr^tnVp (ba'sing-stok), a town 

isasmgsioKe of Englandt county of 

Hants, 18 miles n. n. e. from Winchester. 
It has a good trade in corn, malt, etc., 
and now gives name to one of the pari, 
divisions of the county. Pop. 11,540. 

"Ra^tlrerville (bas ker-vil), John, a 
iSaSKervme celebrated English 

printer and type-founder, born in 1706; 
died 1775. He settled at Birmingham as 
a writing-master, subsequently engaged 
in the manufacture of japanned works, 
and in 1750 became a printer. From 
his press came highly-prized editions of 
ancient and modern classics, Bibles, 
prayer-books, etc., all beautifully-printed 
works. 

"RacVpf (bas'ket), a vessel or utensil 
X>ctdivcL 0 f wickerwork, made of in¬ 
terwoven osiers or willows, rushes, twigs, 
grasses, etc. The process of basket¬ 
making is very simple, and appears to be 
well known among the very rudest peo¬ 
ples. The ancient Britons excelled in the 
art, and their baskets were highly prized 
in Rome. 

Basketball, “ bilT a°e- 

velopment from football, which it in 
certain respects resembles. It is played 
on the floor of a hall or gymnasium, 
usually by 5 or 7 players on a side. At 
either end a basket is hung about 10 feet 
high, corresponding to the football goal, 
The ball is passed from one player to 
another by throwing or striking with the 
hands only, the ultimate object being to 


lodge it in the basket of the opposing 
party, this scoring one point. The rules 
as to interference, playing out of 
bounds, etc., are adopted from football, 
The game has grown rapidly in popular¬ 
ity within recent years in this country 
as a winter indoor amusement. 

Basking-shark 

mus ), a species of shark, so named from 
its habit of basking in the sun at the 
surface of the water. It reaches the 
length of 40 feet, and its liver yields a 
large quantity of oil. It frequents the 
northern seas, and is known also as the 
sail-fish or sun-fish. 

Basle. See Basel. 

BaSOChe. See Bazoche. 

"Rn^miPQ (basks), or Biscayans (in 
aaij-UC* 5 their own language, Euscal- 
dunac), a remarkable race of people 
dwelling partly in the southwest corner 
of France, but mostly in the north of 
Spain adjacent to the Pyrenees. They 
are probably descendants of the ancient 
Iberi, who occupied Spain before the 
Celts. They preserve their ancient 
language, former manners, and national 
dances, and make admirable soldiers, es¬ 
pecially in guerrilla warfare. Their lan¬ 
guage is highly polysynthetic, and no 
connection between it and any other lan¬ 
guage has as yet been made out. There 
are four principal dialects, which are 
not only distinguished by their pronun¬ 
ciation and grammatical structure, but 
differ even in their vocabularies. The 
Basques, who number about 600,000, oc¬ 
cupy in Spain the provinces of Biscay, 
Guipuzcoa, and Alava; in France parts 
of the departments of the Upper and 
Lower Pyrenees, Ariege, and Upper 
Garonne. 

Basra. See Bassora. 

relief (ba're-lef or bas're-lef), 
Bass-relief, low relief, a 



Bas-relief, from the Elgin Marbles. 









Bass 


Bass 


mode of sculpturing figures on a flat 
surface, the figures having a very slight 
relief or projection from the surface. It 
is distinguished from haut-relief ( alto- 
rilievo), or high relief, in which the 
figures stand sometimes almost entirely 
free from the ground. Bas-relief work 
has been described as ‘ sculptured paint¬ 
ing ’ from the capability of disposing of 


tinguished from the true perches by hav¬ 
ing the tongue covered by small teeth 
and the preoperculum smooth. L. lupus, 
the only British species, called also sea- 
dace, and from its voracity sea-wolf, re¬ 
sembles somewhat the salmon in shape, 
and is much esteemed for the table, 
weighing about 15 lbs. L. lineatus 
(Roccus lineatus), or striped bass, an 



Striped Bass. 


groups of figures and exhibiting minor 
adjuncts, as in a painting. 

BftrSS (bas» from the Italian basso, 
deep, low), in music, the lowest 
part in the harmony of a musical com¬ 
position, whether vocal or instrumental. 
According to some it is the fundamental 
or most important part, while others 
regard the melody or highest part in that 
light. Next to the melody, the bass part 
is the most striking, the freest and 
boldest in its movements, and richest in 
effect.— Figured bass, a bass part having 
the accompanying chords suggested by 
certain figures written above or below 
the notes—the most successful system 
of short-hand scoring at present in use 
among organists and pianists.— Funda¬ 
mental bass, the lowest note or root of 
a chord; a bass consisting of a succes¬ 
sion of fundamental notes.— Thorough 
bass, the mode or art of expressing 
chords by means of figures placed over 
or under a given bass. Figures written 
over each other indicate that the notes 
they represent are to be sounded simul¬ 
taneously, those standing close after 
each other that they are to be sounded 
successively. The common chord in its 
fundamental form is generally left un¬ 
figured, and accidentals are indicated by 
using sharps, naturals, or flats along 
with the figures. 

BaSS the name of a number of 

fishes of several genera, but 
originally belonging to a genus of sea- 
fishes ( Labrax ) of the perch family, dis¬ 


American species, weighing from 25 to 
30 lbs., is much used for food, and is 
also known as rock-fish. Both species 
occasionally ascend rivers, and attempts 
have been made to cultivate British bass 
in fresh-water ponds with success. Two 
species of black bass ( Micropterus sal- 
moides and M. dolomieu), American 
fresh-water fishes, are excellent as food 
and give fine sport to the angler. The 
former is often called the large-mouthed 
black bass, from the size of its mouth. 
Both make nests and take great care 
of their eggs and young. The Centro- 
pristis nigricans, an American sea-fish 
of the perch family, and weighing 2 to 
3 lbs., is known as the sea-bass. 

BaSS (has), The, a remarkable in¬ 
sular trap-rock of Scotland at 
the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 3 miles 
from North Berwick, of a circular form, 
about 1 mile in circumference, rising ma¬ 
jestically out of the sea to a height of 
313 feet. It pastures a few sheep, and 
is a great breeding-place of solan-geese. 
During the persecution of the Covenant¬ 
ers, its castle, long since demolished, was 
used as a state prison, in which several 
eminent Covenanters were confined. It 
was held from 1691 to 1694 with great 
courage and pertinacity by twenty Jaco¬ 
bites, who in the end capitulated ou 
highly honorable terms. 

Bass. See Basswood. 

Bass r 9 b ? rt Perkins, forest com- 
* missioner and legislator, born at 




Bassano 


Bassompierre 


Chicago, Sept. 1, 1873, was graduated at 
Harvard Law School in 1898. He en¬ 
gaged in farming and real estate busi¬ 
ness in New Hampshire, devoting much 
of his time to the advancement of for¬ 
estry in that state; was elected to the 
N. II. House in 1905 and to the Senate 
in 1909, and was forest commissioner of 
the state 1906-10. He was an earnest 
and successful advocate of reform, op¬ 
posing energetically the railroad domina¬ 
tion of the state, and in 1910 was elected 
governor on a reform ticket.—His brother 
John Foster Bass (born 1866), has 
been a war correspondent: in Egypt in 
1895; in Armenia at time of massacre, 
1897; in the Greek war, 1898; in the 
Spanish-American war, the Phillippine 
insurrection, the Boxer outbreak in 
China, and the Russo-Japanese war, 1904. 
"RflQQflnn (b&s-s&'no), a commercial 
xtazaauv city of North Italy, province 
of Vicenza, on the Brenta, over which 
is a covered wooden bridge. It has lofty 
old walls and an old castle, and has 
various industries and an active trade. 
Near Bassano, September 8, 1796, Bona¬ 
parte defeated the Austrian general 
Wurmser. Pop. 7896. 

Bassa'no < from > lis birthplace; real 
name Giacomo da Ponte), 
an Italian painter, born 1510; died 1592. 
He painted historical pieces, landscapes, 
flowers, etc., and also portraits ; and left 
four sons, who all became painters, 
Francesco being the most distinguished. 

Bassaris (bas'sa-ris) a genus of N. 

a American carnivora repre¬ 
senting the civets of the old world. 

Bassein (Ws-san'), a town in Lower 
Burmah, province of Pegu, 
on both banks of the Bassein river, one 
of the mouths of the Irrawaddy, and 
navigable for the largest ships. It has 
considerable trade, exporting large quan¬ 
tities of rice, and importing coal, salt, 
cottons, etc. Pop. 30,000.—Bassein Dis¬ 
trict has an area of 7047 sq. m. and a 
pop. of 383,102. 

■Rqccatti (b&s-san'), a decayed town 
JDdbbCiil j n Hindustan, 28 miles north 
from Bombay. At the beginning of the 
eighteenth century it was a fine and 
wealthy city, with over 60,000 inhabi¬ 
tants ; it has now about 11,000. 
■Rfleepli-n (b&s-lap), Oliver, an old 
pj.gnnh p oe t or song-writer, 
born in the Val-de-Vire, Normandy, 
about the middle of the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury; died 1418 or 1419. His sprightly 
songs have given origin and name to the 
modern Vaudevilles. 

■RqccaIicqp (bas-lis) Tapestry, a kind 
jjdaaciiaac 0 j, tapestry wrought with 

a horizontal warp. See HauteUsse. 


Basses-Alpes i p > dw L a ™ 

of France, on the Italian border. See 
Alpes. 


Basses-Pyrenees !j as - p e-ra-na; 

J Lower Pyre¬ 

nees’), a French department, bordering 
on Spain and the Bay of Biscay. See 
Pyrenees. 

Bass'et name a game at cards, 
, formerly much played, espe¬ 
cially in France. It is very similar to 
the modern faro. 

Basseterre two towns in 

the West Indies.—1. 
Capital of the island of St. Christopher’s, 
at the mouth of a small river, on the 
south side of the island. Trade con¬ 
siderable. Pop. about 9000.—2. The 
capital of the island of Guadaloupe. It 
has no harbor, and the anchorage is un¬ 
sheltered and exposed to a constant 
swell. Pop. about 8000. 

Basset-horn (bas'set), a musical in¬ 
strument, now practi¬ 
cally obsolete, a sort of clarinet of en¬ 
larged dimensions, with a curved and 
bell-shaped metal end. The compass ex¬ 
tends from F below the bass-staff to 
C on the second ledger-line above the 
treble. Mozart has several pieces writ¬ 
ten for the basset-horn. 

■Rpoelo (bas'i-a), a genus of tropical 
trees found in the East Indies 
and Africa, nat. order Sapotacese. One 
species ( B . Parkii) is supposed to be 
the shea-tree of Park, the fruit of which 
yields a kind of butter that is highly 
valued, and forms an important article 
of commerce in the interior of Africa. 
There are several other species, of which 
B. longifolia, or Indian oil-tree, and B. 
butyracea, or Indian butter-tree, are 
well-known examples, yielding a large 
quantity of oleaginous or butyraceous 
matter. The wood is as hard and incor¬ 
ruptible as teak. 


Ba SSOmnieiTP (ba-son-pyar), Fran- 
JjdsoUiii|JicI IC goig DE , Marshal of 

France, distinguished both as a soldier 
and a statesman ; born 1579, died 1646. 
In 1602 he made his first campaign 
against the Duke of Savoy, and he 
fought with equal distinction in the fol¬ 
lowing year in the imperial army against 
the Turks. In 1622 Louis XIII ap¬ 
pointed him Marshal of France, and be¬ 
came so much attached to him that 
Luynes, the declared favorite, sent him 
on embassies to Spain, Switzerland, and 
England. After his return he became an 
object of suspicion to Cardinal Richelieu, 
and was sent to the Bastille in 1631, 
from which he was not released till 1643, 
after the death of the cardinal. During 



Bassoon 


Bastia 



his detention he occupied himself with 
writing his memoirs, which shed much 
light on the events of that time. 

"Ra ccnnn (ba-son'), a musical wind- 
■Dd&&uuii instrument of the reed or¬ 
der, blown with a bent metal 
mouthpiece, and holed and 
keyed like the clarinet. Its 
compass comprehends three 
octaves, rising from B flat be¬ 
low the bass-staff. Its diame¬ 
ter at bottom is 3 inches, and 
for convenience of carriage 
it is divided into two or more 
parts, whence its Italian name 
fagotto, a bundle. It serves 
for the bass among wood wind- 
instruments, as hautboys, 
flutes, etc. 

a s o-r a) or 
JjabbUl d Basra a city in 

Asiatic Turkey, on the west 
bank of the Shat-el-Arab (the 
united stream of the Tigris 
and Euphrates), about 50 
miles from its mouth and 
nearly 300 southeast of Bag- 
Bassoon. dad It ig s Urroun ded by a 

wall about 10 miles in circuit, from 
20 to 25 feet thick, but much of 
the area enclosed is occupied by gar¬ 
dens, etc. The houses are generally 
mean. A considerable transit trade is 
carried on here between the Turkish 
and Persian dominions and India, and 
since communication by steamer has 
been established with Bagdad and Bom¬ 
bay the prosperity of the town has 
greatly increased. The chief exports 
are dates, camels and horses, wool and 
wheat; imports coffee, indigo, rice, tis¬ 
sues, etc. Thirty years ago the in¬ 
habitants were estimated at 5000; they 
are now about 40,000; in the middle of 
last century they were said to number 
150,000. The recent substitution of date 
and wheat cultivation for that of rice 
has rendered the place much more 
healthy. The ruins of the ancient and 
more famous Bassora—founded by 
Caliph Omar in 636, at one time a center 
of Arabic literature and learning and 
regarded as ‘ the Athens of the East ’— 
lie about 9 miles southwest of the mod¬ 
ern town. 


broad, discovered by George Bass, a 
surgeon in, the royal navy, in 1798. 

■Ro ccumnrl Bass, the American lime- 

isasswooa, tree or linden {Tilia 

Americana), a tree common in N. 
America, yielding a light, soft timber. 
Bast t ^ le i nner hark of exogenous 
a 9 trees, especially of the lime or 
linden, consisting of several layers of 
fibers. The manufacture of bast into 
mats, ropes, shoes, etc., is in some dis¬ 
tricts of Russia a considerable branch 
of industry, bast mats, used for packing 
furniture, covering plants in gardens, 
etc., being exported in large quantities. 
Though the term is usually restricted, 
many of the most important fibers of 
commerce, such as hemp, flax, jutb, etc., 
are the products of bast or liber. 
"Ractar (bas-tar'), a feudatory state in 
Upper Godavari district, 
Central Provinces of India; area, 13,062 
sq. m.; pop. (1901) 306,501. Chief town, 
Jagdalpur. 

"Rac'tarrl a child begotten and born 
Jidb tdiu, QUt of wedlock . an illegiti¬ 
mate child. By the civil and canon 
laws and by the law of Scotland (as 
well as of some of the United States), 
a bastard becomes legitimate by the in¬ 
termarriage of the parents at any future 
time. But by the laws of England a 
child, to be legitimate, must at least be 
born after the lawful marriage; it does 
not require that the child shall be be¬ 
gotten in wedlock, but it is indispensable 
that it should be born after marriage, 
no matter how short the time, the law 
presuming it to be the child of the hus¬ 
band. The only incapacity of a bastard 
is that he cannot be heir or next of kin 
to any one save his own issue. 

Bastard Bar, correctly baton 

9 sinister , the heraldic 
mark used to indicate ille¬ 
gitimate descent. It is a 
diminutive of the bend sin¬ 
ister, of which it is one- 
fourth in width, couped or 
cut short at the ends, so 
as not to touch the corners 
of the shield. Bastard Bar. 

Bastard Cedar. See Cedrela _ 



'Rasicinra frlirn an inferior kind of Bastard SaffrOll. See Cedrela. 
Bassoid vjum, gum resembling gum _ - - - - 


arabic. 


Basso-rilievo. See Bas-relief. 

Bass Rock. See Bass. 

■Race Strait a channel beset with 

Bass 0X1 air, islandS( which separates 

Australia from Tasmania, 120 miles 


Bastia (Ws-tS'i), the former capital 
of the island of Corsica, upon 
the N. e. coast, 75 miles n. e. of Ajaccio, 
on a hill slope; badly built, with narrow 
streets, a strong citadel, and an in¬ 
different harbor; but has some manu¬ 
factures, a considerable trade in hides, 
soap, wine, oil, pulse, etc. Pop. (1906) 
24,509. 












Bastian 


Bastille 


‘RpQ+ian (bast'yan), Adolf, a German 
■“ctaiiaii traveler and ethnologist; 
born in 1826. He traveled very widely 
and his numerous writings throw light 
on almost every subject connected with 
ethnology or anthropology, as well as 
psychology, linguistics, non-Christian re¬ 
ligions, geography, etc. One of his chief 
works is Die Volker des ostlichen Asien 
(‘ Peoples of Eastern Asia,’ 6 vols., 
1866-71). 

■Rq c-H a yi (bas'ti-an), Henry Charlton, 
-Dd&llclll an English physician and 

biologist, born at Truro in 1837. He 
was educated at Falmouth and at Uni¬ 
versity College, London, where he was 
assistant curator in the museum in 1860- 
63. He subsequently studied medicine 


tan Museum, New York), portraits of 
Sara Bernhardt, Andre Theunet, etc. 

Bastiat <Ms-te-a), Frederic, a 

French economist and advo¬ 
cate off free trade, born at Bayonne 1801; 
died at Rome 1850. He became ac¬ 
quainted with Cobden and the English 
free traders, whose speeches he translated 
into French. His chief works are: 
Sophismes Eeonimiques, Propri6te et 
Loi, Justice et Fraternite, Protectionisme 
et Communisme , Harmonies ficonomiques, 
etc. 

"Roofillp (bas-tel'), a French name for 
any strong castle provided 
with towers, but as a proper name the 
state prison and citadel of Paris, which 
was built about 1370 by Charles V. It 



The Bastille, as in time of Louis XV. 


and in 1867 became professor of patho¬ 
logical anatomy in University College. 
Apart from numerous contributions to 
medical and other periodicals, and to 
Quain’s Dictionary of Medicine, he wrote 
The Modes of Origin of Lowest Organ¬ 
isms; The Beginnings of Life; Evolution 
and the Origin of Life; Lectures on 
Paralysis from Brain Disease; and The 
Brain as an Organ of Mind. He became 
an ardent advocate for spontaneous 
generation. 

Bastian-Lepage', £SAo?n ab a e t 

Damvillers, France, in 1848; died in 
1884; a pupil of Alexander Cabanel; 
best known by his La Premiere Com¬ 
munion, Jeanne d'Arc (in the Metropoli- 


was ultimately used chiefly for the con¬ 
finement of persons of rank who had 
fallen victims to the intrigues of the 
court or the caprice of the government. 
(See Cachet , Lettres de.) The capture 
of the Bastille by the Parisian mob, 14th 
July, 1789, was the opening act of the 
revolution. On that date the Bastille 
was surrounded by a tumultuous mob, 
who first attempted to negotiate with the 
governor Delaunay, but when these nego¬ 
tiations failed, began to attack the for¬ 
tress. For several hours the mob con¬ 
tinued their siege without being able to 
effect anything more than an entrance 
into the outer court of the Bastille; but 
at last the arrival of some of the Royal 
Guard with a few pieces of artillery 














Bastinado 


Bat 


forced the governor to let down the 
second drawbridge and admit the popu¬ 
lace. The governor was seized, but on 
the way to the hotel de ville he was torn 
from his captors and put to death. The 
next day the destruction of the Bastille 
commenced. Not a vestige of it exists, 
but its site is marked by a column in 
the Place de la Bastille. 

"RaetiYiafin (bas-ti-na'do), an eastern 

isasxinaao method of corporal pun¬ 
ishment, consisting of blows upon the 
soles of the feet, applied with a stick. 

"RaQtinYi (bast'yun), in fortification, a 
X>ctbLiUIl large mags of earthr f aced 

with sods, brick, or stones, standing out 
from a rampart, of which it is a prin¬ 
cipal part. A bastion consists of two 
flanks, each commanding and defending 
the adjacent curtain, or that portion of 
the wall extending from one bastion to 
another, and two faces making with 
each other an acute angle called the 
salient angle, and commanding the out¬ 
works and ground before the fortifica¬ 
tion. The distance between the two 
flanks is the gorge, or entrance into the 
bastion. The use of the bastion is to 
bring every point at the foot of the ram¬ 
part as much as possible under the guns 
of the place. 

■Ras+winlr (bast'wik), John, an Eng- 
.Ddbiwiois. lish physician and eccles¬ 
iastical controversialist, born in 1593, 
died 1654. He settled at Colchester, but 
instead of confining himself to his profes¬ 
sion, entered keenly into theological con¬ 
troversy, and was condemned by the 
Star Chamber for his books against 
Prelacy: Elenclius Religionis Papis¬ 

tical, Flagellum Pontificis, and The 
Letanie of Dr J. Bastwick. With 
Prynne and Burton he was sentenced to 
lose his ears in the pillory, to pay a fine 
of $25,000, and to be imprisoned for life. 
He was released by the Long Parliament, 
and entered London in triumph along 
with Prynne and Burton. He appears to 
have continued his controversies to the 
very last with the Independents and 
others. 

‘Rfl^ntnland (ba-so'to-land), a divi- 

-Dabuioidiia gion of British South 

Africa, enclosed between Orange River 
Colony, Natal, Griqualand East, and 
Cape Colony. The Basutos belong 
chiefly to the great stem of the Bechu- 
anas, and have made greater advances 
in civilization than perhaps any other 
South African race. In 1866 the 
Basutos, w r ho had lived under a semi¬ 
protectorate of the British since 1848, 
were proclaimed British subjects, their 
country placed under the government of 
an agent, and in 1871 it was joined to 


Cape Colony. In 1879 the attempted en¬ 
forcement of an act passed for the dis¬ 
armament of the native tribes caused a 
revolt under the chief Moirosi, which the 
Cape forces were unable to put down. 
When peace was restored Basutoland 
was disannexed from Cape Colony 
(1884), and is now a crown colony of 
Great Britain. Basutoland has an area 
of about 10,300 sq. miles, much of it 
covered with grass, and there is but 
little wood. The climate is pleasant. 
The natives keep cattle, sheep, and 
horses, cultivate the ground, and ex¬ 
port grain. It is divided into four dis¬ 
tricts, each presided over by a magis¬ 
trate. Pop. (1904) 348,848, few of them 
Europeans. 

Bat one ^he & rou P wing-handed, 
J flying mammals, having the fore¬ 
limb peculiarly modified so as to serve 
for flight, and constituting the order 
Cheiroptera. Bats are animals of the 



Great Horseshoe Bat (Rhinoldphus Ferrum- 
equinum ). 

twilight and darkness, and are common 
in temperate and warm regions, but are 
most numerous and largest in the 
tropics. All European bats are small, 
and have a mouse-like skin. Many bats 
are remarkable for having a singular 



nasal cutaneous appendage, bearing in 
some cases a fancied resemblance to a 
horse-shoe. Bats may be conveniently 
divided into two sections—the insectiv¬ 
orous or carnivorous, comprising all 



Batalha 


Bath 


European and most African and Ameri¬ 
can species; and the fruit-eating, be¬ 
longing to tropical Asia and Australia, 
with several African forms. An Austra¬ 
lian fruit-eating bat ( Pterdpus ediilis), 
commonly known as the kalong or flying- 
fox, is the largest of all the bats; it 
does much mischief in orchards. At 
least two species of South American bats 
are known to suck the blood of other 
mammals, and thence are called ‘ vam¬ 
pire-bats ’ (though this name has also 
been given to a species not guilty of this 
habit). The best known is the Desmodus 
rufus of Brazil, Chile, etc. As winter 
approaches, in cold clirpates bats seek 
shelter in caverns, vaults, ruinous and 
deserted buildings, and similar retreats, 
where they cling together in large clus¬ 
ters, hanging head downwards by the 
feet, and remain in a torpid condition 
until the returning spring recalls them 
to active exertions. Bats generally 
bring forth two young, which, while 
suckling, remain closely attached to the 
mother’s teats, which are two, situated 
upon the chest. The parent shows a 
strong degree of attachment for her off¬ 
spring, and, when they are captured, 
will follow them, and even submit to 
captivity herself rather than forsake her 
charge. 

'RatalTiP (bi-tal'ya), a village in Por- 
JjctlcllIIct tU g a j^ gQ m iies north of Lis¬ 
bon, with a renowned convent of 
Dominicans, a splendid building. 

Tia fan eras (ba-t&n'gas), a town of the 
13d Ldllgcla phiiippi nes> i n the island 

Luzon, capital of a province of same 
name, 58 miles s. of Manila. Pop. 
33,131. 

Bata'tas. See Sweet Potato. 
Bat'avi. See Batavians. 

"Ratavia (ba-ta'vi-a), a city and sea- 
Jjdldvld p 0rt j ava> on the north 

coast of the island, the capital of all 
the Dutch East Indies. It is situated 
on a wide, deep bay, the principal ware¬ 
houses and offices of the Europeans, the 
Java Bank, the exchange, etc., being in 
the old town, which is built on a low, 
marshy plain near the sea, intersected 
with canals and very unhealthy; while 
the Europeans reside in a new and much 
healthier quarter. Batavia has a large 
trade, sugar being the chief export. It 
was founded by the Dutch in 1619, and 
attained its greatest prosperity in the 
beginning of the eighteenth century. 
Here is one of the most magnificent 
botanical gardens of the world. Its in¬ 
habitants are chiefly Malay, with a con¬ 
siderable admixture of Chinese and a 


small number of Europeans. Pop. 
115,887. 

Batavia, % dt & capital of Genesee 
, Co., New York, 36 miles 
northeast of Buffalo by rail. It has 
large manufactories of harvesting ma¬ 
chinery and plows, also shotguns, shoes, 
etc. It is the seat of, the State institution 
for the blind. Pop. 11,613. 


"Rq tp vi q n q au old German nation 

.Batavians, which inhabited a part 

of the present Holland, especially the 
island called Batavia , formed by that 
branch of the Rhine which empties itself 
into the sea near Leyden, together with 
the Waal and the Maas. Tacitus as¬ 
serts them to have been a branch of the 
Catti. They were subdued by Ger- 
manicus, and were granted special privi¬ 
leges for their faithful services to the 
Romans, but revolted under Vespasian. 
They were, however, again subjected by 
Trajan and Adrian, and at the end of 
the third century the Salian Franks ob¬ 
tained possession of the island of 
Batavia. 


Batchian. See Bachian. 


Bath (bath), a city of England, in 
Somersetshire, on the Avon, 
which is navigable for barges from 
Bristol. The Abbey Church ranks as 
one of the finest specimens of perpendic¬ 
ular Gothic architecture. Bath is re¬ 
markable for its medicinal waters, the 
four principal springs yielding no less 
than 184,000 gallons of water a day: 
and the baths are both handsome and 
commodious. The temperature of the 
springs varies from 109° to 117° Fahren¬ 
heit. They contain carbonic acid, 
chloride of sodium and of magnesium, 
sulphate of soda, carbonate and sulphate 
of lime, etc. Bath was founded by the 
Romans, and called by them Aquae Solis 
(Waters of the Sun). Amongst the 
Roman remains discovered here have 
been some fine baths. The height of 
its prosperity was reached, however, in 
the eighteenth century, when Beau Nash 
was leader of the fashion and master of 
its ceremonies. Since then, though it 
still attracts large numbers of visitors, 
it has become the resort of valetu¬ 
dinarians chiefly. Pop. (1911) 50,729. 
"Rntll a sea P° rt Maine, on 

f the west side and at the head 
of the winter navigation of the Kenne¬ 
bec, 12 miles from the sea. Chief in¬ 
dustries : shipbuilding and allied crafts. 
It has a soldiers’ and sailors’ orphans’ 
home. Pop. 9396. 

Bath i mmers i° n of the body in 
‘ L>a f water, or an apparatus for this 
purpose. The use of the bath as an 



Bath 


Bath 


institution apart from occasional immer¬ 
sion in rivers or the sea is, as might 
be anticipated, an exceedingly old cus¬ 
tom. Homer mentions the bath as one 
of the first refreshments offered to a 
guest; thus, when Ulysses enters the 
palace of Circe a bath is prepared for 
him, and he is anointed after it with 
costly perfumes. No representation, 
however, of a bath as we understand it 
is given upon the Greek vases, bathers 
being represented either simply washing 
at an elevated basin or having water 
poured over them from above. In later 
times, rooms, both public and private, 
were built expressly for bathing, the 
public baths of the Greeks being mostly 
connected with the gymnasia. Appar¬ 
ently, by an inversion of the later prac¬ 
tice, it was customary in the Homeric 
epoch to take first a cold and then a 
hot bath; but the Lacedemonians sub¬ 
stituted the hot-air sudorific bath, as 
less enervating than warm water, and 
in Athens at the time of Demosthenes 
and Socrates the warm bath was con¬ 
sidered by the more rigorous as an effem¬ 
inate custom. The fullest details we 
have with respect to the bathing of the 
ancients apply to its luxurious develop¬ 
ment under the Romans. Their bathing 
establishments consisted of four main 
sections: the undressing room, with 
an adjoining chamber in which the 
bathers were anointed ; a cold room with 
provision for a cold bath ; a room heated 
moderately to serve as a preparation for 
the highest and lowest temperatures; and 
the sweating-room, at one extremity of 
which was a vapor-bath and at the other 
an ordinary hot bath. After going 
through the entire course both the Greeks 
and Romans made use of strigils or 
scrapers, either of horn or metal, to re¬ 
move perspiration, oil, arid impurities 
from the skin. Connected with the 
bath were walks, covered race-grounds, 
tennis-courts, and gardens, the whole, 
both in the external and internal decora¬ 
tions, being frequently on a palatial 
scale. The group of the Laocoon and 
the Farnese Hercules were both found 
in the ruins of Roman baths. With re¬ 
spect to modern baths, that commonly in 
use in Russia consists of a single hall, 
built of wood, in the midst of which is 
a metal oven covered with heated stones, 
and surrounded with broad benches, on 
which the bathers take their places. 
Cold water is then poured upon the 
heated stones, and a thick, hot steam 
rises, which causes the sweat to issue 
from the whole body. The bather is 
then gently whipped with wet birch 
rods, rubbed with soap, and washed with 


lukewarm and cold water; of the lat¬ 
ter, some pailfuls are poured over his 
head; or else he leaps, immediately after 
this sweating-bath, into a river or pond, 
or rolls in the snow. The Turks, by 
their religion, are obliged to make re¬ 
peated ablutions daily, and for this pur¬ 
pose there is, in every city, a public 
bath connected with a mosque. A fa¬ 
vorite bath among them, however, is 
a modification of the hot-air sudorific 
bath of the ancients introduced under 
the name of ‘ Turkish ’ into other than 
Mohammedan countries. A regular ac¬ 
companiment of this bath, when properly 
given, is the operation known as ‘ knead¬ 
ing,’ generally performed at the close of 
the sweating process, after the final rub¬ 
bing of the bather with soap, and con¬ 
sisting in a systematic pressing and 
squeezing of the whole body, stretching 
the limbs, and manipulating all the joints 
as well as the fleshy and muscular 
parts. Public baths are now common in 
the United States. There are also nu¬ 
merous ‘ hot springs ’ in nearly every 
section. Among the most famous are 
those at Hot Springs, in Garland Co., 
Arkansas, resorted to by invalids for 
the cure of rheumatism and similar com¬ 
plaints. There are here from seventy- 
five to one hundred springs, varying in 
temperature from 105° to 160°, issuing 
from a lofty ridge of sandstone over¬ 
looking the town, while others rise in 
the bed of the stream near by. 

The principal natural warm baths in 
England are at Bath and Bristol in 
Somersetshire, and Buxton and Matlock 
in Derbyshire. The baths of Harrogate, 
which are strongly impregnated with 
sulphuretted hj’drogen gas, are also of 
great repute for the cure of obstinate 
cutaneous diseases, indurations of the 
glands, etc. The most celebrated natural 
hot baths in Europe are those of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, and the various Baden in Ger¬ 
many ; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagni&res, 
Bareges, and Dax, in the south of 
France; and Spa, in Belgium. Besides 
the various kinds of water-bath with or 
without medication or natural mineral 
ingredients, there are also milk, oil, wine, 
earth, sand, mud, and electric baths, 
smoke-baths and gas-baths; but these are 
as a rule only indulged after specific 
prescription. 

The practice of bathing as a method of 
cure in cases of disease falls under the 
head of hydropathy; but even when it is 
employed simply for pleasure or purifi¬ 
cation due regard should be paid to the 
physiological condition of the bather. In 
many cases cold bathing should be 
avoided altogether, especially by those 



Bath 


Bath-stone 


who have any tendency to spitting of 
blood or consumption, by gouty people, 
or by those who have any latent visceral 
disease or apoplectic tendency. Wherever 
the bath is followed by shivering instead 
of by a healthy reactionary glow, it is 
undesirable; and a cold bath in the 
morning after any debauchery or excess 
in eating or drinking on the previous 
evening is exceedingly imprudent. Deli¬ 
cate persons and children ought not to 
bathe in the sea before ten or eleven 
o’clock in the morning, and in no case 
should bathing be indulged in after a 
long fast. In cold streams and rivers 
additional precautions should be taken, 
the cold plunge, when heated or fatigued, 
being frequently attended with fatal re¬ 
sults. Even warm baths are not wholly 
free from danger, apoplexy and death 
having been known to follow a hot bath 
when entered with a full stomach. As a 
rule, the temperature should not exceed 
105°, and they should not be too long 
continued. Frequent indulgence in them 
has an enervating effect, though the ma¬ 
jority of people need as yet no renewal 
of Hadrian’s prohibitive legislation in 
this matter. 

Bath Knights of the, an order of 
dJdii , England, supposed to have been 
instituted by Henry IV. on the day of 
his coronation, but allowed to lapse after 
the reign of Charles II. till 1725, when 
George I revived it as a military order. 
By the book of statutes then prepared 
the number of knights was limited to the 
sovereign and thirty-seven knights com¬ 
panions; but the limits of the order were 
greatly extended in 1815, and again in 
1847, when it was opened to civilians. 
It now consists of three classes, each 
subdivided into (1) military members, 
(2), civil members, and (3), honorary 
members, consisting of foreign princes 
and officers. The first class consists of 
Knight of the Grand Cross (G.C.B.) ; 
the second of Knights Commanders 
(K.C.B.) ; and the third of Companions 
(C.B.). The Dean of Westminster is 
dean of the order. The ribbon of the 
order is crimson; the badge a gold cross 
of eight points, with the lion of Eng¬ 
land between the four principal angles, 
and having in a circle in the center the 
rose, thistle, and shamrock between three 
imperial crowns ; motto: ‘ Tria juncta 

in uno.’ Stars are worn by the two first 
classes, with the additional motto, ‘ Ich 
dien.’ 

-brick a preparation of sili- 
u ^ > ceous earth found in the 
river Parret in Somersetshire in the 
form of a solid brick, used for cleaning 
knives, etc. 

27—1 


’RntTicratn (bath'gat), a town of Scot- 
-Dctl/Iigaie land> County Linlithgow, 

having glass works, a distillery, and 
several grain-mills, and in the vicinity 
a paraffin works and coal and iron¬ 
stone mines. Pop. 6786. 

Bathing. See Bath. 

Bathometer (bath-om'e-ter), an in- 
strument for measuring 
the depth of sea beneath a vessel with¬ 
out casting a line. It is based upon the 
fact that the attraction exerted upon 
any given mass of matter on the ship is 
less when she is afloat than ashore be¬ 
cause of the smaller density of sea¬ 
water as compared with that of earth 
or rock. 

"Rpfhnri (ba'to-re), a Hungarian 
cllliu family which gave Transyl¬ 
vania five princes and Poland one of 
its greatest kings. The more important 
members were:—1. Stephen, born in 
1532, elected Prince of Transylvania in 
1571, on the death of Zapolya, and in 
1575 King of Poland. He accomplished 
many internal reforms, recovered the 
Polish territories in possession of the 
Czar of Muscovy, and reigned prosper¬ 
ously till his death in 1586.—2. Sigis- 
mund, nephew of Stephen, educated by 
the Jesuits, became waiwode or prince 
of Transylvania in 1581, shook off the 
Ottoman yoke and had . begun to give 
hopes of reigning gloriously when he re¬ 
signed his dominions to the emperor Ru¬ 
dolph II, in return for two principalities 
in Silesia, a cardinal’s hat, and a pen¬ 
sion. Availing himself, however, of an 
invitation by the Transylvanians, he re¬ 
turned, and placed himself under the 
protection of the Porte, but was defeated 
by the Imperialists in every battle, and 
finally sent to Prague, where he died al¬ 
most forgotten in 1613.—3. Elizabeth, 
niece of Stephen, King of Poland, and 
wife of Count Nadasdy, of Hungary. 
She is said to have bathed in the blood 
of 300 young girls in the hope of re¬ 
newing her youth, and to have committed 
other enormities. She was finally seized 
and confined till her death in 1614. 

Bat-horse. See Batman. 

"Ratlins (ba'thos), a Greek word mean- 
ing depth, now used to signify 
a ludicrous sinking from the elevated to 
the mean in writing or speech. First 
used in this sense by Pope. 

Bath-stone, f. s P f ecies °. f En «’ is 5 

’ lime-stone, also called 
Bath-oolite and roe-stone , from the small 
rounded grains of which it is composed. 
It is extensively worked near Bath for 
building purposes. When just quarried 



I 


Bathurst 


Batrachians 


it is soft, but though it soon becomes 
hard on exposure to the atmosphere, and 
is of handsome appearance, it is not very 
durable. 

Hothiirct (bath'urst), a British set- 
Jjct til ui o l t] emen t; on the west coast 

of Africa, on the island of St. Mary’s, 
near the mouth of the Gambia, with a 
trade in gum, bees’-wax, hides, ivory, 
gold, rice, cotton and palm-oil. Pop. 
about '6200, with less than a hundred 
whites. 

■Ra+lvnvci a town in the western dis- 
XJcllIlUibtj tr j ct of New South Wales, 

on the Macquarie river, with tanneries, 
railway workshops, breweries, flour-mills, 
and other industries. The Bathurst 
gold-fields were discovered in 1851. Pop. 
9223. 

■D Q +lvnrc+ Allen Bathurst, Earl, a 
na 111 Ulbl, distinguished statesman in 
Queen Anne’s reign ; born 1684. He took 
part with Harley and St. John in op¬ 
posing the influence of Marlborough, was 
raised to the peerage in 1711, impeached 
the promoters of the South Sea scheme, 
opposed the bill against Atterbury, and 
was a leading antagonist of Walpole. 
He was created earl in 1772. His name 
is also associated with those of the lead¬ 
ing writers and wits of the day. Died 
1775. 

'RoflmvQf Henry Bathurst, Earl, 
-Odium bt, gon of the gecond earl> a 

prominent Tory statesman, after whom 
various capes, islands, and districts were 
named. Born 1762; in 1807, president 
of Board of Trade; in 1809 secretary 
for foreign affairs; and in 1812, secre¬ 
tary for the colonies, a post held by him 
for sixteen years. He was also presi¬ 
dent of the council under Wellington, 

. 1828-30. He died in 1834. 

Bathurst Island,® 11 . th .e Nort ? 

7 Australian coast, 
belonging to South Australia, separated 
from Melville Island by a narrow strait; 
triangular in shape, with a wooded area 
of about 1000 sq. miles.—Also an island 
in the Arctic Ocean discovered by Parry, 
e. of Cornwallis and w. of Melville 
Island, 76° n., 100° w. 

Bathyb'ius ^ r : \^hys, deep, bios, 

lire), the name given by 
Huxley to what he regarded as masses 
of a very low form of living organism, 
covering the sea-bottom at great depths, 
and in such abundance as to form in 
some places deposits of 30 feet or more 
in thickness. It has been described as 
?.A ei ? acious > viscid, slimy substance, ex¬ 
hibiting under the microscope a net- 
work of granular, mucilaginous matter, 
which expands and contracts spontane¬ 
ously, and thus seems to form an or¬ 


ganism of the utmost simplicity. But 
the existence of such a substance has 
been a subject of dispute among scien¬ 
tists and it is no longer regarded as liv¬ 
ing matter. 

■Rq+ic+a (ba-test'), a fine linen cloth 

-DdiibLe made in Flanders and p ic _ 

ardy, named after its inventor Batiste 
of Cambray. 

■Rq+Gott a borough of England, West 
-Odliey, Riding o£ York, about 2 

miles from Dewsbury, has large mills for 
woolen cloth, carpets and shoddy. Pop. 
(1911) 36,395. 

"Rq Ityi a n (bat'man or ba'man ; from 

Jjd Lllldll Fr Mff a pack . sadd ie), in 

the British army, a person allowed by 
the government to every company of a 
regiment on foreign service. His duty 
is to take charge of the cooking utensils, 
etc., of the company and he has a bat- 
horse to convey these utensils from place 
to place. 

Baton (bat'on), a short staff or trun- 
auu cheon, in some cases used as 
an official badge, as that of a field- 
marshal. The conductor of an orchestra 
has a baton for the purpose of directing 
the performers as to time, etc. In her¬ 
aldry, what is usually called the ‘ bas¬ 
tard bar,’ or * bar sinister,’ is properly 
a baton sinister. See Bastard Bar. 

Bat'on Rouge oTtbe 

left bank of the Mississippi about 130 
miles above New Orleans, with an ar¬ 
senal, barracks, military hospital, state- 
house, state university, etc. It has 
manufactures of lumber, cotton seed prod¬ 
ucts, sugar, etc. Pop. 11,269. 

"Rfltnnm or Batum (ba-tom'), a 
9 port on the east coast of 
the Black Sea, acquired by Russia by the 
treaty of Berlin, on condition that its 
fortifications were dismantled and it were 
thrown open as a free port. It rapidly 
grew to be the main outlet for Transcau¬ 
casia ; its harbor was enlarged for al¬ 
leged commercial reasons; an arsenal 
was built outside it; it was connected 
by a military road with Kars; and 
finally, in July, 1886, the Russian gov¬ 
ernment declared it to be a free port no 
longer. Its importance as a naval and 
military station to Russia is unquestion¬ 
ably great, and it will probably rank in 
the future as one of the strongest posi¬ 
tions on the Black Sea. The water is 
of great depth close inshore, and the 
shipping lies under protection of the 
overhanging cliffs of the Gouriel Moun¬ 
tains. Pop. over 30,000. 

Batrachians (ba-tra'ki-anz), the 

. , fourth order in Cu¬ 

viers arrangement of the class Reptilia, 



Batshian 


Battery 


comprising frogs, toads, newts, sala¬ 
manders, and sirens. The term is now 
often employed as synonymous with am¬ 
phibia, but is more usually restricted to 
the order Anura or tailless amphibia. 
See Amphibia. 

Batshian. See Bachian. 


■Rfl-H-a (bat'a), an allowance which 
mmtary officers i n India re¬ 
ceive in addition to their pay. It was 
originally given only when the officers 
were under march or in the field, but 
now half-batta is paid when troops are 
in cantonments. 

■Rattalirm (ba-tal'yun), a body of men 
JjdlIdliun arraye( j f or battle; specif¬ 
ically, a body of infantry. In the United 
States army it consists of two, four, six, 
eight, or ten companies, according to cir¬ 
cumstances, and is commanded by the 
senior officer present. The number of en¬ 
listed men varies from 100 to 1000, in ac¬ 
cordance with the minimum or maximum 
organization of the army. The army is 
divided into corps, divisions, brigades, 
regiments, and battalions. 

■Rnf'+cic a people belonging to the 
Jjd,l Ido, Malayan race inhabiting the 
valleys and plateaus of the mountains that 
extend longitudinally through the island 
of Sumatra. They practise agriculture 
and cattle-rearing, and are skillful in 
various handicrafts; they have also a 
written literature and an alphabet of 
their own, their books treating of as¬ 
trology, witchcraft, medicine* war, etc. 
They are under the rule of hereditary 
chieftains. 

■Rattpnhprp* (bat'en-berg), a village 
XmllcIlUci g ^ p russ i an prov. of 

Hesse-Nassau, from which the sons (by 
morganatic marriage) of Prince Alex¬ 
ander of Hesse, derive their title of 
princes of Battenberg. One of them, 
Alexander, was elected Prince of Bulgaria 
in 1879, but had to abdicate in 1886. An¬ 
other, Henry, was married to Princess 
Beatrice of Great Britain in 1885, and 
was the father of the present queen of 
Spain. He died while on military duty 
in Africa, 1897. 


Battenberg: or Renaissance Lace, 
a variety of handmade 


lace, consisting of braid arranged in a 
design and sewn together with linen; 
may contain rings as part of the design. 
It may be white or colored. Originated 
in Battenberg. 

■Rof'fpviq (bat'ens), sawn deals, us- 

- Bal tens ually 12 t0 14 feet long> 7 

inches broad, and 2£ inches thick. 

Battering-ram, t a e n rin e “ gin d e 0 4° n r ba £ 


walls of besieged places. The ancients 
employed two different engines of this 
kind—one suspended in a frame, the 
other movable on wheels or rollers. They 
consist of a beam or spar with a massive 
metal head, and were set in motion either 
by a direct application of manual force 



Battering-ram. 

or by means of cords passing over pulleys. 
Some are said to have been 120 feet or 
more in length, and to have been worked 
by 100 men. One is described as being 
180 feet long, and having a head weighing 
iy 2 tons. They were generally covered 
with a roof or screen for the protection of 
the workers. 

Battersea < b ?‘' er ; s6 >’ a , sub . urban dis ‘ 

tnct of London, in Surrey, 
on the south bank of the Thames, nearly 
opposite Chelsea, with a fine public park 
extending over 185 acres. Pop. 168,907. 
"Ratfpvxi (bat'er-i), as a military 
Dalit! y term> (i) any number of 

guns grouped in position for action; (2) 
any work constructed as a position for 
such guns; (3) the tactical unit of field- 
artillery, more properly described as a 
field battery, consisting in the American 
army of six guns with all necessary ap¬ 
purtenances. There are, however, many 
kinds of batteries, distinguished by names, 
referring either to position or the duties 
which they perform. In gun and howit¬ 
zer batteries there are embrasures through 
which the firing takes place; but mortar 
batteries have no openings.— In battery , 
a term signifying a projecting, as a gun, 
into an embrasure or over a parapet in 
position for firing. Gross-batteries are 
two batteries which play athwart each 
other, forming an angle upon the object 
battered ; an en 4charpe battery, a battery 
which plays obliquely on the enemy’s 
lines; an enfilade battery; a battery 
which scours or sweeps the whole, line or 
length ; an en revers battery, one which 
plays upon the enemy’s back. 

Tlattprv in physics, a combination of 

** f several jars or metallic 
plates, to produce or increase the effect 
of electricity and galvanism. 

Battery in criminal law > an assault 

J 9 by beating or wounding an- 










Batthyanyi 


Battue 


other. The least touching or meddling 
with the person of another against his 
will may be held to constitute a battery. 


Batthyanyi 


(bat-yan'ye), one of the 
oldest and most cele¬ 


brated Hungarian families, traceable as 
far back as the Magyar invasion of Pan- 
nonia in the ninth century. Among later 
bearers of the name have been— Count 
Casimir Batthyanyi, who was asso¬ 
ciated with Kossuth, was minister of 
foreign affairs in Hungary during the 
insurrection of 1849, and died in Paris in 
1854; Count Louis Batthyanyi, born 
1809, of another branch of the family, 
was leader of the opposition in the Hun¬ 
garian diet until the breaking out of the 
commotions of 1848, when he took an 
active part in promoting the national 
cause; but on the entry of Windischgriitz 
into Pesth he was arrested and shot, 


1849. 

Battle a combat between two 

armies. In ancient times and 
the middle ages the battleground was oc¬ 
casionally chosen by agreement, and the 
battle was a mere trial of strength, a duel 
en gros. As the armies of the ancients 
were imperfectly organized, and the com¬ 
batants fought very little at a distance, 
after the battle had begun maneuvers 
were much more difficult, and the troops 
almost entirely beyond the control of the 
general. Under these circumstances the 
battle depended almost wholly upon the 
previous arrangements and the valor of 
the troops. In modern times, however, 
the finest combinations, the most ingenious 
maneuvers, are rendered possible by the 
better organization of the armies, and it 
is often the skill of the general rather 
than the courage of the soldier that now 
determines the event of a battle. Battles 
are distinguished as offensive or defensive 
on either side, but there is a natural and 
ready transition from one method to the 
other. As a rule, the purely defensive 
attitude is condemned by tacticians ex¬ 
cept in cases where the only object 
desirable is to maintain a position of 
vital consequence, the weight of precedent 
being in favor of the dash and momentum 
of an attacking force even where opposed 
to superior forces. Where the greatest 
generals have acted upon the defensive, it 
has almost always been with desire to 
develop an opportunity to pass to the of¬ 
fensive, and having discovered their op¬ 
ponent’s hand, to marshal against the 
enemy, exhausted with attack, the whole 
strength of their resources. Napoleon 
won more than one great victory by this 
method, and Wellington’s reputation was 
largely based upon his skill in defensive- 
offensive operations. Tacticians have 


divided a battle into three periods: those 
of disposition, combat, and the decisive 
moment. In some measure they require 
distinct qualities in a commander, the in¬ 
tellect which can plot a disposition being 
by no means always of the prompt judg¬ 
ment passing to instant action which 
avails itself of the crucial moment to 
crush an enemy. 

"Rotflp a t° WE » of England, county of 
Sussex, so named from the 
battle of Hastings, fought at this site. An 
abbey built by William the Norman has 
disappeared, but important remains of a 
subsequent building exist on the same 
site; and there is an old church of great 
interest. Pop. 2924. 

TSattlp (° r Battel), Wager of, an 
-uai/iic obsolete method, according to 
English law, of deciding civil or criminal 
cases by personal combat between the 
parties or their champions in presence of 
the court. A woman, a priest, a peer, or 
a person physically incapable of fighting 
could refuse such a trial. It was not 
abolished till 1818, but had long previous¬ 
ly been in abeyance. 

■RoH-Ip-q a weapon much used in 
Jj<x l lie dAC, war j n t b e early part of 

the middle ages among knights. It is a 
weapon which affords hardly any guard, 
and the heavier the blow given with it 
the more the fighter is exposed ; but its 
use was to some extent necessitated by 
the resistance of iron armor to all but 
heavy blows. In England and Scotland 
the battle-axe was much employed, the 
Lochaber-axe remaining a formidable im¬ 
plement of destruction in the hands of 
the Highlanders to a recent period. 

"Rattlp firpplr a cit y of Michigan, 
isame creeK, at the j Unction of the 

Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, 45 miles 
s. w. of Lansing. It has extensive water¬ 
power and large printing press and 
threshing machine works, flour mills, and 
various other industries. Pop. 25,267. 
"Raf'flAmout a notched or indented 

-Bax tiement, parapet of a f ort ^ CSL . 

tion formed by a series of raised parts 
called cops or merlons , separated by 
openings called crenelles or embrasures , 
the soldier sheltering himself behind the 
merlon while he fires through the embra¬ 
sure. Battlements were originally mili¬ 
tary, but were afterwards used freely in 
ecclesiastical and civil buildings by way 
of ornament, on parapets, cornices, 
tabernacle work, etc. 

BattUC (ba.-tii'), a method of killing 
game by having persons to 
beat a wood, copse, or other cover, and 
so drive the animals (pheasants, hares, 
etc.) towards the spot where sportsmen 
are stationed to shoot them. 



Battus 


Bauxite 


"Ratine (bat'tus), the reputed founder 
xiattua of the Greek colony 0 f Gy¬ 
rene in Libya about 650 b. c. There were 
eight rulers of the family founded by him, 
bearing alternately the names Battus and 
Arcesilaus. 

Batu Khan < ba - ta ' kan )> Mongol 

■ Ucltu JViicUl ruler Qf the western 

conquests of his grandfather Genghis 
Khan from 1224 to 1255. He overran 
Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Dalmatia, 
holding Russia for ten years. 

Batum. See Batoum. 

Baudelaire ( b5d ' lar ) * Charles 

Pierre, a French poet, 
born 1821. His first work of importance 
was a series of translations from Poe, 
ranking among the most perfect transla¬ 
tions in any literature. A volume of 
poems, Les Fleurs du Mai (1857), es¬ 
tablished his reputation as a leader of the 
romanticists, though the police thought 
it necessary to deodorize them. Of a 
higher tone were his Petits Poemes en 
Prose; followed in 1859 by a monograph 
on Theophile Gautier, in 1860 by Les 
Paradis Artificiels (opium and hashish 
studies), and in 1861 by Wagner and 
Tannhduser. He died in 1867. 

BfLUdrV ( ba_ dre), Paul Jacques 
a u Aime, a prominent modern 

French painter, born 1828, son of an ar¬ 
tisan. He took the grand prix de Rome 
in 1850, and has exhibited many impor¬ 
tant works, of which the better known 
are his Charlotte Corday and La Perle et 
la Vague. The decoration of the foyer 
of the New Opera House at Paris was en¬ 
trusted to him—an enormous work, oc¬ 
cupying a total surface of 500 square 
meters, but admirably accomplished by 
him in eight years. Died in 1886. 
Bauer (bou'er), Bruno, a German 
philosopher, historian, and 
Biblical critic of the rational school; 
born in 1809; died in 1882. He was 
distinguished for the boldness and reck¬ 
lessness of his Biblical criticisms and 
wrote a Critique of the Gospels and nu¬ 
merous other works. 

"Ran”hin (bo-ap), Gaspard, born at 
jjauniii Basel in 1560; in 1580 elected 
to the Greek chair at Basel, and in 1589 
to that of anatomy and botany. He died 
in 1624. His fame rests chiefly on his 
Pinax theatri Botanici and Theatrum 
Botanicum. Linnseus gave his name to a 
genus of plants. See Bauhinia. His 
name is given to the ileocaecal valve. 
Bauhinia <bi»-hm'i-a), a genus of 

plants, order Leguminosse, 
usually twiners, found in the woods of 
hot countries, and often stretching from 
tree to tree like cables. Many are showy 


and interesting. The bark of B. varie- 
gdta is used in tanning; the bast fibers of 
some Indian species are made into ropes 
and twine. 

Baumgarten (boum'gardm), alex- 

S ander Gottlieb, a 

German philosopher, born in 1714 at 
Berlin; in 1740 was made professor of 
philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and 
died there in 1762. He is the founder of 
esthetics as a science, and the inventor 
of this name. His ideas were first de¬ 
veloped in his De Nonnullis ad Poema 
pertinentibus (1735), and afterwards in 
the two volumes of his uncompleted 
fisthetica , published 1750-58. 

Baur (hour), Ferdinand Christian, 
German theologian, founder of 
the * Tubingen School of Theology ; ’ born 
in 1792. The publication of his first 
work, Symbolism and Mythology , or the 
Natural Religion of Antiquity, in 1824- 
25, led to his appointment as professor in 
the evangelical faculty of Tubingen Uni¬ 
versity, a position occupied by him till 
his death in 1860. His chief works in 
the department of (he history of Christian 
dogma are: The Christian Gnosis, or the 
Christian Philosophy of Religion (1835) ; 
The Christian Doctrine of the Atone¬ 
ment (1838) ; The Christian Doctrine of 
the Trinity and the Incarnation (1841- 
3) ; The Compendium of and Lectures on 
the History of Christian Dogmas (1847, 
1865). He wrote also a number of works 
relating to New Testament topics. Baur’s 
views in regard to the church of the 
earliest times and the New Testament 
Scriptures have been very influential. He 
saw different and opposing tendencies at 
work in the church of apostolic times, 
and believed that the New Testament 
mainly took form in the second century, 
the only genuine writings previous to 
a. d. 70 being the four great Pauline epis¬ 
tles and Revelation. 

Bautzen (bout'sen), or Budissin, a 
German town in the king¬ 
dom of Saxony, upon a height on the 
right bank of the Spree, with some old 
and interesting buildings. The inhabit¬ 
ants are mostly Lutheran, and both 
Catholics and Protestants worship in the 
same cathedral. Chief manufactures: 
woolens, paper, gunpowder, machinery. 
Napoleon defeated the united armies of 
the Russians and the Prussians at 
Bautzen on the 21st May, 1813. Pop. 
(1905 ) 29,412. 

Bauxite (bftk'sit), a clay found at 
Baux, near Arles in France, 
and exported from the north of Ireland 
(Co. Antrim), containing a large propor¬ 
tion of alumina, and used as a lining for 
furnaces (such as Siemens’s) that have 



Bavaria 


Bavaria 


to support an intense heat, and as a 
source of aluminium. 

‘Rmraria (ba-va'ri-a ; German, Baiern; 
naveilia French> Baviere), a kingdom 

in the south of Germany, the second 
largest state of the empire, composed of 
two isolated portions, the larger, com¬ 
prising about eleven-twelfths of the mon¬ 
archy, having the Austrian territories on 
the east, and Wiirtemberg, Baden, etc., on 
the west, while the smaller portion, the 
Pfalz or Palatinate, is separated from the 
other by Wiirtemberg and Baden, and 
lies west of the Rhine; total area, 29,292 
sq. m. The principal divisions are: 
Upper Bavaria, chief town, Munich, capi¬ 
tal of the kingdom; Lower Bavaria, 
Palatinate; Upper Palatinate and Regens¬ 
burg; Upper Franconia; Middle Fran¬ 
conia ; Lower Franconia and Aschaffen- 
burg; Schwaben and Neuburg; the total 
population being 6,876,497. After Mu¬ 
nich the chief towns are Niirnberg, Augs¬ 
burg, Wiirzburg, and Ratisbon (Regens¬ 
burg). The main portion of the kingdom 
is in most parts hilly ; in the south, wdiere 
it belongs to the Alps, mountainous; but 
north of the Alps and south of the 
Danube, which flows east through the 
country from Ulm to Passau, there is a 
considerable plateau, averaging about 1600 
feet above the sea-level. The south fron¬ 
tier is formed by a branch of the Noric 
Alps, offsets from which project far into 
the plateau; principal peaks: the Zug- 
spitze, 10,394 ft., and the Watzmann, 
9470 ft. The Palatinate is traversed 
by the northern extremity of the Vosges 
Mountains, the highest peak being the 
Konigstuhl, 2162 ft. The greater part 
of the country belongs to the basin of 
the Danube, which is navigable, its 
tributaries on the south being the Iller, 
Lech, Isar, and Inn; on the north, the 
Wornitz, Altmtihl, Nab, and Regen. The 
northern portion belongs to the basin of 
the Main, which receives the Regnitz and 
Saale, and is a tributary of the Rhine. 
The Palatinate has only small streams 
that flow into its boundary river, the 
Rhine. The chief lakes of Bavaria are 
all on the higher part of the south 
plateau; the smaller within the range 
of the Alps. The Ammer-See is about 10 
miles long by 2^ broad, 1736 ft. above 
the sea; the Wiirm-See or Starnberger- 
See, about 12 miles long by 3 broad, 1899 
ft.; and Chiem-See, 9 miles long by 4 
to 9 broad, 1651 ft. The climate in gen¬ 
eral is temperate and healthy, though 
somewhat colder than the other South 
German states; yearly average about 47°. 

As regards soil, Bavaria is one of the 
most fertile countries in Germany, pro¬ 


ducing the various cereals in abundance, 
the best hops in Germany, fruit, w r ine, to¬ 
bacco, etc., and having extensive forests. 
Lower Franconia (the Main valley) and 
the Palatinate are the great vine-growing 
districts. The celebrated Steinwein and 
Leistenwein are the produce of the slopes 
of the Steinberg and Marienberg at 
Wurzburg (on the M^in). The forests 
of Bavaria, chiefly fir and pine, yield a 
large revenue, much timber being annu¬ 
ally exported, together with potash, tar, 
turpentine, etc. The principal mineral 
products are salt, coal, and iron, some of 
the mining w T orks belonging to the state. 
The minerals worked include copper, 
quicksilver, manganese, cobalt, porcelain 
clay, alabaster and graphite. Large num¬ 
bers of horses and cattle are reared, as 
also sheep and swine. The manufactures 
are mostly on a small scale. The princi¬ 
pal articles manufactured are linens, 
woolens, cotton, leather, paper, glass, 
earthen and iron ware, jewelry, etc. The 
optical and mathematical instruments 
made are excellent. A most important 
branch of industry is the brewing of beer. 
A number of the people maintain them¬ 
selves by the manufacture of articles in 
wood, and by felling and hewing timber. 
The trade of Bavaria is comparatively 
limited. Principal exports: corn, timber, 
wine, cattle, glass, hops, fruit, beer, 
wooden wares, etc. The chief imports 
are sugar, coffee, cotton, rice, spices, dye¬ 
stuffs, silk and silk goods, lead, etc. From 
its position Bavaria has a considerable 
transit trade. The Kbnig Ludwig Canal 
connects the Main at Bamberg with the 
Altmuhl a short distance above its em¬ 
bouchure in the Danube, thus establish¬ 
ing water communication between the 
German Ocean and the Black Sea. 

Education is in a less satisfactory con¬ 
dition than in most German states. There 
are three universities, two of which 
(Munich and Wurzburg) are Roman 
Catholic, and one (Erlangen) Protestant. 
In art Bavaria is best known as the home 
of the Nurnberg school, founded about 
the middle of the sixteenth century by 
Albert Diirer. Hans Holbein is also 
claimed as a Bavarian; and to these have 
to be added the eminent sculptors Kraft 
and Vischer, both born about the middle 
of the fifteenth century. The restoration 
of the reputation of Bavaria in art was 
chiefly the work of Ludwig I (1815-48), 
under whom the capital became one of the 
most prominent seats of the fine arts in 
Europe. The religion of the state is Ro¬ 
man Catholicism, which embraces more 
than seven-tenths of the population, less 
than three-tenths being Protestants. All 



Bavaria 


Baxterians 


citizens, whatever their creed, possess the 
same civil and political rights. The 
dioceses of Bavaria comprise two R.C. 
archbishoprics, Munich and Bamberg; 
and six bishoprics, Augsburg, Ratisbon, 
Eichstadt, Passau, Wurzburg, and Spires. 

The Bavarian crown is hereditary in 
the male line. The executive is in the 
hands of the king. The legislature con¬ 
sists of two chambers—one of senators, 
composed of princes of the royal family, 
the great officers of the state, the two 
archbishops, the heads of certain noble 
families, and certain members appointed 
by the crown ; the other of deputies, 159 
in number, nominated by the electors, who 
are themselves elected, 1 for every 500 
of the population. The lower chamber 
is elected for six years. In time of peace 
the army is under the command of the 
King of Bavaria, but in time of war un¬ 
der that of the Emperor of Germany, as 
commander-in-chief of the whole German 
army. 

History .—The Bavarians take their 
name from the Boii, a Celtic tribe whose 
territory was occupied by a confedera¬ 
tion of Germanic tribes, called after 
their predecessors Boiarii. These were 
made tributary first to the Ostrogoths, 
and then to the Franks; and on the death 
of Charlemagne his successors governed 
the country by lieutenants with the title 
of margrave, afterwards converted (in 
921) into that of duke. In 1070 Bavaria 
passed to the family of the Guelphs, and 
in 1180 by imperial grant to Otho, Count 
of Wittelsbach, founder of the still 
reigning dynasty. In 1623 the reigning 
duke was made one of the electors of the 
empire. Elector Maximilian II joined 
in the war of the Spanish succession on 
the side of France, and this led, after the 
battle of Blenheim, 1704, to the loss of 
his dominions for the next ten years. 
His son, Charles Albert, likewise lost his 
dominions for a time to Austria, but they 
were all recovered again by Charles’s son, 
Maximilian III (1745). In the wars 
following the French revolution Bavaria 
was in a difficult position between France 
and Austria, but finally joined Napoleon, 
from whom its elector Maximilian IV. 
received the title of king (1805), a title 
afterwards confirmed by the treaties of 
1814 and 1815. King Maximilian I was 
succeeded by his son, Ludwig (or Louis) 
I under whom various circumstances 
helped to quicken a desire for political 
change. Reform being refused, tumults 
arose in 1848, and Ludwig resigned in 
favor of his son, Maximilian II, under 
whom certain modifications of the consti¬ 
tution were carried out. At his death in 
1864, he was succeeded by Ludwig II. In 


the war of 1866 Bavaria sided with Aus¬ 
tria, and was compelled to cede a small 
portion of its territory to Prussia, and to 
pay a war indemnity of $12,500,000. 
Soon after Bavaria entered into an alli¬ 
ance with Prussia, and in 1867 joined the 
Zollverein. In the Franco-German war of 
1870-71 the Bavarians took a prominent 
part, and it was at the request of the 
King of Bavaria, on behalf of all the 
other princes and the senates of the free 
cities of Germany, that the King of Prus¬ 
sia agreed to accept the title of Emperor 
of Germany. Since January, 1871, Ba¬ 
varia has been a part of the German Em¬ 
pire, and is represented in the Bundes- 
rath by six, and in the Reichstag by forty- 
eight members. The eccentricity early 
displayed by Ludwig II developed to 
such an extent that in June, 1886, he was 
placed under control, and a regency estab¬ 
lished under Prince Liutpold (Leopold). 
The change was almost immediately fol¬ 
lowed by the suicide of the king, and as 
Prince Otto, the brother and heir of the 
late king, was insane, the regency was 
continued. 

"Rqy+pv (baks'ter), Richard, the most 
HaAtci eminent of the English non- 
conforming divines of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, born at Rowton, Shropshire, in 
1615; ordained in 1638; parish minister 
of Kidderminster in 1640. The imposition 
of the oath of universal approbation of 
the doctrine and discipline of the Church 
of England (the et ccotera oath ) detached 
him from the Establishment. After the 
battle of Naseby he accepted the chap¬ 
laincy of Colonel Whalley’s regiment. He 
can scarcely be said, however, to have 
separated as yet in spirit from the Es¬ 
tablishment. He upheld the monarchy, 
condemned the execution of the king and 
the election of Cromwell, preached against 
the Covenant and against separatists and 
sectaries, but his piety won him the re¬ 
spect of all parties. At the Restoration he 
became king’s chaplain, but declined the 
bishopric of Hereford, and on the passage 
of the Act of Uniformity threw in his 
lot entirely with the nonconformists. In 
1685 he was arrested, refused a hearing 
by Jeffreys, and imprisoned. After his 
release he lived in retirement till his 
death in 1691. He left about 150 
treatises, of which his Saints ’ Everlast¬ 
ing Rest and Call to the Unconverted 
have been the most popular. 

followers of Baxter in 
respect of his attempted 
compromise between Calvinism and 
Arminianism. They reject the doctrine of 
reprobation, admit a universal potential 
salvation, becoming actual in the case of 
the elect, and assert the possibility of 


Baxterians, 



Bay 


Bayeux 


falling from grace. Exponents: Dr. 
Watts and Dr. Doddridge. 

Bav (ka), the laurel-tree, noble laurel, 
J or sweet-bay (Laurus nobilis) ; 
but the term is loosely given to many 
trees and shrubs resembling this. A fatty 
or fixed oil (used in veterinary medicine) 
and also a volatile oil is obtained from the 
berries, but what is called ‘ bayberry oil ’ 
is also obtained from the genus Myrica 
or candleberry. In United States the fra¬ 
grant-flowered Magnolia glauca is called 
sweet bay, the red bay being Laurus caro- 
linensis , the loblolly-bay Gordonia lasian- 
thus. See Laurel. 

■goy in geography, an indentation of 
> some size into the shore of a sea or 
lake, generally said to be one with a com¬ 
paratively wider entrance than a gulf. 
jDny in architecture, a term applied to a 
jja v > recessed division or compartment 
of a building, as that marked off by but¬ 
tresses or pillars. 

B ava (ba'ya), the w T eaver-bird ( Plo - 
y ecus philippinus ), an interest¬ 
ing East Indian passerine bird, somewhat 
like the bullfinch. Its nest resembles a 
bottle, and is suspended from the branch 
of a tree. The entrance is from beneath, 
and there are two chambers, one for the 
male, the other for the female. The baya 
is easily tamed, and will fetch and carry 
at command. 


"Rnvariprpti (ba-a-derz'), the genera] 
-Ddydueicfc European name for the 

dancing and singing girls of India, some 
of whom are attached to the service of 
the Hindu temples, while others travel 
about and dance at entertainments for 
hire. Those in the service of the temples 
are generally devoted to this profession 
(including that of prostitution) from 
their childhood. 

"Ravnmn (ba-ya'mo), or St. Salvador, 

ijayamo a town in the east of Cuba> 

near the Cauto: pop. (1907) 4102. 
Bavard (ba-yar), Pierre du Terrail, 
J Seigneur de, the Chevalier 


sans peur et sans reproche (‘ knight with¬ 
out fear and without reproach’), born in 
1476 in Castle Bayard, near Grenoble, in 
southern France. At the age of eighteen 
he accompanied Charles VIII to Italy, 
and in the battle at Verona took a stand¬ 
ard. At the beginning of the reign of 
Louis XII, in a battle near Milan, he 
entered the city at the heels of the fugi¬ 
tives, and was taken prisoner, but dis¬ 
missed by Ludovico Sforza without ran¬ 
som. In Apulia he killed his calumnia¬ 
tor, Sotomayor, and afterwards defended 
a bridge oyer the Garigliano singly against 
the Spaniards, receiving for this exploit 
as a coat of arms a porcupine, with the 
motto Vires agminis unus habet (‘one 


has the strength of a band’). He dis¬ 
tinguished himself equally against the 
Genoese and the Venetians, and, when 
Julius II declared himself against 
France, went to the assistance of the 
Duke of Ferrara. He was severely 
wounded at the assault of Brescia, but 
returned, as soon as cured, to the camp 
of Gaston de Foix, before Ravenna, and 
after new exploits was again dangerously 
wounded in the retreat from Pavia. In 
the war commenced by Ferdinand the 
Catholic he displayed the same heroism, 
and the fatal reverses which embittered 
the last years of Louis XII only added 
to the personal glory of Bayard. When 
Francis I ascended the throne he sent 
Bayard into Dauphine to open a passage 
over the Alps and through Piedmont. 
Prosper Colonna lay in wait for him, but 
was made prisoner by Bayard, who im¬ 
mediately after further distinguished him¬ 
self in the battle of Marignano. After 
his defence of Mezi&res against the invad¬ 
ing army of Charles V he was saluted in 
Paris as the saviour of his country, re¬ 
ceiving the honor paid to a prince of the 
blood. His presence reduced the revolted 
Genoese to obedience, but failed to pre¬ 
vent the expulsion of the French after 
the capture of Lodi. In the retreat the 
safety of the army was comtnitted to 
Bayard, who, however, was mortally 
wounded by a stone from a blunderbuss 
in protecting the passage of the Sesia. 
He kissed his sword’s cross, confessed to 
his squire, and died April 30, 1524. 
Bavard ( bi 'ard), Thomas Francis, 
J statesman, born at Wilming¬ 

ton, Delaware, in 1828, educated at Flush¬ 
ing, studied law, and in 1868 was elected 
to the United States Senate, where he 
served till 1884. In 1885 he was made 
Secretary of State in President Cleve¬ 
land’s cabinet, and on March 30, 1893, 
was appointed ambassador to England, 
being the first ambassador from the 
United States, only ministers being ap¬ 
pointed previously. He died in 1898. 

BaV Citv a c * ty * n eastern Mich- 
^ J > igan, on the e. side of Sagi¬ 
naw River, near its mouth in Saginaw 
Bay, Lake Huron. It has an extensive 
trade in lumber and salt and important 
fisheries; also shipbuilding works, beet 
sugar, chicory, chemical, and various 
other manufacturers. Is in a coal¬ 
mining district. West Bay City lies on 
the apposite side of the river. Pop. 
45,166. 1 

BaveUX (b&-yew)» an ancient town of 
* France, dep. Calvados, 16 
miles N. w. of Caen, with manufactures of 
lace, calico, and porcelain. In its cathe¬ 
dral, said to be the oldest in Normandy, 



Bayeux Tapestry 


Baynes 


was preserved for a long time the famous It is a vast storehouse of facts, discus- 
Bayeux tapestry. Pop. (1906 ) 6930. sions, and opinions, and though it was 
HavPlTV so called be- publicly censured by the Rotterdam con- 

a ^ UA lapcaiij, cause it was sistory for its frequent impurities, its 
originally found in the cathedral of pervading scepticism, and tacit atheism, 
Bayeux, in the public library of which it long remained a favorite book both with 
town it is still preserved. It is supposed literary men and with men of the world, 
to have been worked by Matilda, queen of The articles in his dictionary, in them- 
William the Conqueror, and to have been selves, are generally of little value, and 
presented by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the serve only as a pretext for the notes, in 
half-brother of William, to the church in which the author displays, at the same 
which it was found. It is 214 feet in time, his learning and the power of his 
length and 20 inches in breadth, and is logic. The best editions are that of 1740, 
divided into seventy-two compartments, in four vols. fol. (Amsterdam and Ley- 
the subject of each scene being indicated den), and that in sixteen vols., published 
by a Latin inscription. These scenes give in 1820-24 at Paris. 

a pictorial history of the invasion and Pay-leaf * ea *- sweet bay or 

conquest of England by the Normans, be- a «/ ca > laurel-tree ( Laurus nobilis). 
ginning with Harold’s visit to the Norman These leaves are aromatic, and are used 
court, and ending with his death at Hast- in cookery and confectionery. See Bay. 

Islands an island group, Bay of Bayleil (bi-Ien'). Same as Bailen. 

AOia u > Honduras, off n. coast 'Rav'lisS Sir Wyke * artist, born at 
of state of Honduras, incorporated as a ’ Madeley, England, in 1835.; 

British colony in 1852, and ceded to Hon- died in 1906. He was made president of 
duras in 1856, but are practically inde- the Royal Society of British Artists, 
pendent. The largest is Ruatan, 30 miles 1888 and knighted in 1897. Among his 
long. works are St. Lawrence , Nuremberg; 

Boyle (bal), Pierre, French critic and The Golden Douma , Pisa; St. Peters, 
■ ua «y miscellaneous writer, the son of Rome. He wrote The Higher Life in 
a Calvinist preacher, born at Carlat Art and The Witness of Art. 

(Languedoc) in 1647, died at Rotterdam Pay! nr Frances Courtney, novelist, 
1706. He studied at Toulouse, and was a </ 1 > born at Fayetville, Arkansas, 

employed for some time as a private tutor in 1848. She is best known by her On 
at Geneva and Rouen. He went to Paris Both Sides; also wrote Behind the Blue 
in 1674, and soon after was appointed Ridge , Juan and Juanita, etc. 
professor of philosophy at Sedan. Six Payly (ba'li), Thomas Haynes, Eng- 
years after he removed to Rotterdam, lish poet, novelist, dramatist, 

where he filled a similar chair. The ap- and miscellaneous writer, born 1797, died 
pearance of a comet, in 1680, which oc- 1839. Educated at Oxford, and intended 
casioned an almost universal alarm, in- for the church. He wrote thirty-six pieces 
duced him to publish, in 1682, his Pensees for the stage, most of which were suc- 
Diverses sur la Comete, a work full of cessful; several novels: Aylmers, Kind- 
learning, in w hich he discussed various ness in Women , etc.; and numerous songs, 
subjects of metaphysics, morals, theology, As a song writer he was most prolific and 
history, and politics. It was followed by most popular: The Soldier's Tear, We 
his Critique Generale de VHistoire du Met — 'twas in a Crowd , and a few others, 
Calvinisme de Maimbourg. This work are still well known. 

excited the jealousy of his colleague, the T> av Maho^ailV that variety of 
theologian Jurieu, and involved Bayle • ua J t mahogany exported 

in many disputes. In 1684 he undertook from Honduras. It is softer and less 
a periodical w r ork, Nouvelles de la Repub- finely marked than the variety known as 
lique des Lettres, containing notices of Spanish mahogany, but is the largest and 
new books in theology, philosophy, his- most abundant kind, 
tory, and general literature. This publi- Poyyipe (banz), Thomas Spencer, 
cation, which lasted for three years, added born at Wellington, Somerset, 

much to his reputation as a philosophical i n 1823 ; died suddenly at London in 1887. 
critic. In 1693 Jurieu succeeded in in- He studied under Sir William Hamilton 
ducing the magistrates of Rotterdam to at Edinburgh, and acted as his class as- 
remove Bayle from his office. He now sistant from 1851 to 1855. From 1857 to 
devoted all his attention to the composi- 1863 he was resident in London where 
tion of his Dictionnaire Ilistorique et he acted as examiner in logic and’ mental 
Critique, which he first published in 1696, philosophy in the University of London 
in two vols. fol. This work, much en- and as assistant editor on the Daily 
larged, has passed through many editions. News. In 1864 he was appointed to the 




Bay of Islands 


Bazaine 


chair of logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics 
in St. Andrews University, a post he 
held till his death. In 1873 he became 
editor of the ninth edition of the En¬ 
cyclopedia Britannica, when his wide 
acquaintance with men of letters and 
learning assisted him greatly in the selec¬ 
tion of suitable contributors. He trans¬ 
lated the Port Royal Logic, and was a 
frequent contributor to the principal re¬ 
views and literary journals. 

Bav of Islands a lar s e > dee P» and 
nay ui .Lbicinub, safe harbor on the 

N. e. coast of the N. Island of New Zea¬ 
land. On it is Kororarika, the first 
European settlement in New Zealand.—- 
Also a large bay formed by the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, on the west coast of New¬ 
foundland. 


■Rnv.Ai'l oil from the berries of the bay 
U1A > or laurel. See Bay. 
'Rnvnyipf (ba'o-net), a straight, sharp- 
ct^uncb p 0 i n t e d weapon, generally 

triangular, intended to be fixed upon the 
muzzle of a rifle or musket, which is thus 
transformed into a thrusting weapon: 
probably invented about 1640, in Bayonne. 
About 1690 the bayonet began to be fas¬ 
tened by means of a socket to the outside 
of the barrel, instead of being inserted as 
formerly in the inside. A variety of the 
bayonet, called the sword-bayonet, is now 
pretty widely used in modern armies, 
especially for the short rifles of the light 
infantry, the carbines of the artillery, 
etc. 

"Rflvnrmp (ba-yon), a well-built forti- 
y fied town, the largest in 

the French dep. Basses-Pyrenees, at the 
confluence of the Nive and the Adour, 
about 2 miles from their mouth in the 
Bay of Biscay; with a citadel command¬ 
ing the harbor and city, a cathedral—a 
beautiful ancient building, shipbuilding 
and Other industries, and a considerable 
trade, the hams of Bayonne being in much 
request. Among the lower class the 
Basque language is spoken. It was the 
scene of the abdication of Charles IV of 
Spain in favor of Napoleon (1808). In 
1814 the British forced the passage of the 
Nive and invested the town, from which 
the French made a desperate but unsuc¬ 
cessful sortie. Pop. (1906) 21,779. 
BflvnTlhP a city of Hudson Co., New 
y 9 Jersey, about 6 miles s. w. 
of New York City. Has large manufac¬ 
turing works, including extensive petro¬ 
leum . refineries, chemical, and other in¬ 
dustries. The coal docks here employ 
several thousand hands. It is a resi¬ 
dential suburb of New York. Pop. 55,- 
545. 

Bayou ( ba 'yc) , in the Southern United 
* States, a stream which flows 


from a lake or other stream : frequently 
used as synonymous with creek or tidal 
channel. 

Bayreuth (bl'roit). See Baireuth. 

"Rav ‘Rum a spirit obtained by dis- 

±>ay xtuiii, tilling the leaves of Myri _ 

ca acris , or other West Indian trees 
of the same genus. It is astringent 
and stimulating and is used for toilet 
purposes and as a liniment in rheumatic 
affections. 

Bay-salt, a ? en <; ral term for coarse- 

J 9 grained salt, but properly 
applied to salt obtained by spontaneous 
or natural evaporation of sea-water in 
large, shallow tanks or bays. 

Bay-window, a window forming a 

J 9 recess or bay in a 

room projecting 
outwards, and ris¬ 
ing from the ground 
or basement on a 
plan rectangular, 
semi-octagonal, or 
semi-hexagonal, but 
always straight¬ 
sided. The term is 
however, also often 
employed to desig¬ 
nate a bow-window, 
which more properly 
forms the segment of 
a circle, and an 
oriel-window, which 
is supported on a 
kind of bracket, and 
i s usually on the 
first floor. 



Bay-window. 


BciZ8l (b^tha), an °l d town of Spain, 
Andalusia, prov. of Granada, 
formerly a large and flourishing city. In 
1810 the French, under Marshal Soult, 
here defeated the Spaniards under 
Generals Blake and Freire. Pop. 12,770. 

Bazaar. See Bazar. 

Bazaino ^ ba _z an )» FitANgois 
-Ddzame AchillE) a French general, 

born in 1811. He served in Algeria, in 
Spain against the Carlists, in the Crimean 
War, and joined the Mexican expedition 
as general of division in 1862, and in 
1864 was made a marshal of France. He 
commanded the third army corps in the 
Franco-German war, when he capitulated 
at Metz, after a seven weeks’ siege, with 
an army of 175,000 men. For this act he 
was tried by court-martial in 1871, found 
guilty of treason, and condemned to death. 
This sentence was commuted to twenty 
years seclusion in the Isle St. Marguerite, 

. fr0 “o^ hlch he esca P ed - Died at Madrid 
in 1888. 











Bazar 


Beaconsfield 


Bazar (b a_Zi ir')> or Bazaar, in the 
East an exchange, market-place, 
or place where goods are exposed for sale, 
usually consisting of small shops or stalls 
in a narrow street or series of streets. 
These bazar-streets are frequently shaded 
by a light material laid from roof to roof, 
and sometimes are arched over. Marts for 
the sale of miscellaneous articles, chiefly 
fancy goods, are now to be found in most 
European cities bearing the name of 
bazars. The term bazar is also applied 
to a sale of miscellaneous articles, mostly 
of fancy work, and contributed gratuit¬ 
ously, in furtherance of some charitable 
or other purpose. 

"Rarariilr (ba-zar-jek'), a town of 
-DdZid-ijiiS. Bulgaria> southeast of 

Silistria. Has an important annual fair. 
Pop. about 11,000. 

(ba-zi-gars'), a tribe of 
-odzagaia East Indians dispersed 

throughout the whole of Hindustan mostly 
in wandering tribes. They are divided 
into seven castes; their chief occupation 
is that of jugglers, acrobats, and tumblers, 
in which both males and females are 
equally skillful. They present many fea¬ 
tures analogous to the gypsies of Europe. 
"Rn 7npli p (ba-zosh'), or Basoche (a 
corruption of Basilica), a 
brotherhood formed by the clerks of the 
parliament of Paris at the time it ceased 
to be the grand council of the French 
king. They had a king, chancellor, and 
other dignitaries; and certain privileges 
were granted them by Philip the Fair 
early in tlje fourteenth century, as also 
by subsequent monarchs. They had an 
annual festival, having as a principal 
feature dramatic performances in which 
satirical allusions were freely made to 
passing events. The representation of 
these farces or satires was frequently in¬ 
terdicted, but their development had a 
considerable effect on the dramatic litera- 
ature of France. 

■Rrlpllin-m (del'i-um), an aromatic 
xmciii mil gum regin brought ch iefl y 

from Africa and India, in pieces of dif¬ 
ferent sizes and figures, externally of a 
dark reddish brown, internally clear, and 
not unlike glue. To the taste it is slightly 
bitterish and pungent; its odor is agree¬ 
able. It is used as a perfume and a medi¬ 
cine, being a weak deobstruent. Indian 
bdellium is the produce of Balsamoden- 
dron Roxburghii; African of B. Afri- 
canam; Egyptian bdellium is obtained 
from the doum palm; and Sicilian is pro¬ 
duced by Daucus gummifer, a species of 
the genus to which the carrot belongs. 
The bdellium mentioned in Gen., ii, was 
apparently a precious stone, perhaps a 
pearl. 


HaqpTipq (bech'es), Raised, a term 
-DCdLiica applied t0 those long ter _ 

raced level pieces of land, consisting of 
sand and gravel, and containing marine 
shells, now, it may be, a considerable dis¬ 
tance above and away from the sea, but 
bearing sufficient evidences of having 
been at one time sea-beaches. In Scot¬ 
land such a terrace has been traced - ex¬ 
tensively along the coasts at about 25 
feet above the present sea-level. 

Beachy Head (bS'chi), a promon- 

J tory in the south of 

England, on the coast of Sussex, rising 
575 feet above sea-level, with a revolving 
light, visible in clear weather from a dis¬ 
tance of 28 miles. A naval battle took 
place here, June 30, 1690, in which a 
French fleet under Tourville defeated an 
English and Dutch combined fleet under 
Lord Torrington. 

BeaCOll (be'kon), an object visible to 
ucdouu some distance, and serving to 
notify the presence of danger; commonly 
applied to a fire-signal set on a height to 
spread the news of hostile invasion or 
other great event; and also applied to a 
mark or object of some kind placed con¬ 
spicuously on a coast or over a rock or 
shoal at sea for the guidance of vessels, 
often an iron structure of considerable 
height. 

Beaconsfield (beW-KM), a village 

of Buckinghams hire, 
the parish church of which contains the 
remains of Edmund Burke, whose seat 
was in the neighborhood ; while a marble 
monument to the poet Waller, who owned 
the manor, is in the churchyard. It 
gave the title earl to the English states¬ 
man and novelist Benjamin Disraeli. 

Beaconsfield, £ en ™min Disraeli, 

Earl of, an eminent 
English statesman and novelist, of Jew¬ 
ish extraction; eldest son of Isaac D’ls- 
raeli, author of the Curiosities of Liter¬ 
ature; was born in London December 21, 
1805. He attended for some time a pri¬ 
vate school, and was first destined for the 
law, but showing a decided taste for lit¬ 
erature he was allowed to follow his in¬ 
clination. In 1826 he published Vivian 
Grey, his first novel; and subsequently 
traveled for some time, visiting Italy, 
Greece, Turkey, and Syria, and gaining 
experiences which were afterwards repro¬ 
duced in his books. His travels and im¬ 
pressions are embodied in a volume of 
letters addressed to his sister and his 
father. In 1831 another novel, The 
Young Duke, came from his pen. It was 
followed at short intervals by Contarini 
Fleming, Alroy, Henrietta Temple, Vene- 
tia, The Revolutionary Epic (a poem), 
etc. In 1832, and on two subsequent 



Beaconsfield 


Bead-snake 


occasions, he appeared as candidate for 
the representation of High Wycombe, 
with a program which included vote by 
ballot and triennial parliaments, but was 
unsuccessful. His political opinions 
gradually changed : in 1835 he unsuccess¬ 
fully contested Taunton as a Tory. In 
1837 he gained an entrance to the House 
of Commons, being elected for Maidstone, 
His first speech in the house w r as treated 
with ridicule; but he finished with the 
prophetic declaration that the time would 
come when they would hear him. During 
his first years in parliament he was a 
supporter of Peel; but when Peel pledged 
himself to abolish the corn-laws, Disraeli 
became the leader of the protectionists. 
About this time he became a leader of 
what was known as the ‘ Young Eng¬ 
land ’ party, the most prominent char¬ 
acteristic of which was a sort of senti- 



Lord Beaconsfield. 

mental advocacy of feudalism. This 
spirit showed itself in his two novels of 
Voningsby and Sybil , published, respect¬ 
ively, in 1844 and 1845. Having acquired 
the manor of Hughenden in Buckingham¬ 
shire, he was in 1847 elected for this 
county, and he retained his seat till raised 
to the peerage nearly thirty years later. 
His first appointment to office was in 
1852, when he became chancellor of the 
exchequer under Lord Derby. The fol¬ 
lowing year, however, the ministry was 
defeated. He remained out of office till 
1858, when he again became chancellor 
i ? xc ^ equer ’ an d brought in a reform 
bill which wrecked the government. Dur¬ 
ing the time the Palmerston government 
was in office Mr. Disraeli led the opposi- 
fron in the lower house with conspicuous 
ability and courage. In 1866 the Lib¬ 
erals resigned, and Derby and Disraeli 
came into power, the latter being again 


chancellor of the exchequer. They im¬ 
mediately brought in, and carried, after 
a violent and bitter struggle, a Reform 
Bill on the basis of household suffrage. 
In 1868 he became premier on the resig¬ 
nation of Lord Derby, but his tenure of 
office was short. In 1874 he again be¬ 
came prime-minister with a strong Con¬ 
servative majority, and he remained in 
power for six years. This period was 
marked by his elevation to the peerage in 
1876 as Earl of Beaconsfield, and by the 
prominent part he took in regard to the 
Eastern question and the conclusion of the 
Treaty of Berlin in 1878. In 1880 par¬ 
liament was rather suddenly dissolved, 
and the new parliament showing an over¬ 
whelming Liberal majority, he resigned 
office, though he still retained the leader¬ 
ship of his party. Within a few months 
of his death the publication of a novel 
called Endymion (his last preceding, Lo- 
thair, had been published ten years be¬ 
fore) showed that his intellect was still 
vigorous. Among others of his writings 
besides those already mentioned are: A 
Vindication of the English Constitution , 
1834; Alarcos, a Tragedy, 1839; and 
Lord George BentincJc, a Political Biog¬ 
raphy, 1852. He died April 19, 1881. 
Bead (bed), originally a prayer; then 
a small perforated ball of gold, 
pearl, amber, glass, or the like, to be 
strung on a thread, and used in a rosary 
by Roman Catholics in numbering their 
prayers, one bead being passed at the end 
of each ejaculation or short prayer; lat¬ 
terly any such small ornamental body. 
Glass beads are now the most common 
sort; they form a considerable item in 
the African trade.—In architecture and 
joinery the bead is a small round mold¬ 
ing. It is of frequent occurrence in 
architecture, particularly in the classical 
styles, and is used in picture-frames and 
other objects carved in wood.— St. Cuth- 
berfs Beads, the popular name of the de¬ 
tached and perforated joints of encrinites. 
Beadle (ke'dl), an officer in a univer¬ 
sity, whose chief business is to 
walk with a mace in a public proces¬ 
sion ; also, a parish officer whose business 
is to punish petty offenders, and a church 
officer with various subordinate duties, 
as waiting on the clergyman, keeping 
order in church, attending meetings of 
vestry or session, etc. 

Bead-snake ( Ela P s fuivius). a beau¬ 
tiful snake of North 
America, inhabiting cultivated grounds, 
especially plantations of the sweet-potato, 
and burrowing in the ground. It is 
finely marked with yellow, carmine, and 
black. Though it possesses poison-fangs, 
it never seems to use them. 



Beagle 


Bear 


Beadle (be f gl)» a small hound, for- 
o merly kept to hunt hares, now 
almost superseded by the harrier, which 
sometimes is called by its name. The 
beagle is smaller than the harrier, com¬ 
pactly built, smooth-haired, and with pen¬ 
dulous ears. The smallest of them are 
little larger than the lap-dog. 

Beam ( bem ^» a lon & Straight and 
strong piece of wood, iron, or 
steel, especially when holding an impor¬ 
tant place in some structure, and serving 
for support or consolidation; often equiv¬ 
alent to girder. In a balance it is the 
part from the ends of which the scales 
are suspended. In a loom it is a cylin¬ 
drical piece of wood on which weavers 
wind the warp before weaving; also, the 
cylinder on which the cloth is rolled as 
it is woven. In a ship one of the strong 
transverse pieces stretching across from 
one side to the other to support the decks 
and retain the sides at their proper dis¬ 
tance : hence a ship is said to be ‘ on her 
beam ends ’ when lying over on her side. 

"Raa-m tvAP (Pyrus aria), a tree of the 
iDCcUll-llCC same g enus as the apple, 

mountain-ash, and service-tree, having 
berries that are edible when quite mel¬ 
low, and yielding a hard and fine-grained 
wood, used for axle-trees and other pur¬ 
poses. 

"Rpan ( bgn )* a name given to several 
■ Dcau kinds of leguminous seeds and 
the plants producing them, probably orig¬ 
inally belonging to Asia. They belong to 
several genera, particularly to Faba, gar¬ 
den and field bean ; Phasedlus, French or 
kidney bean ; and Dolichos, tropical bean. 
The common bean ( F. vulgaris) is culti¬ 
vated both in fields and gardens as food 
for man and beast. There are many 
varieties in gardens, and the horse or 
tick bean in fields. The soil that best 
suits is a strong, rich loam. The seed of 
the Windsor is fully an inch in diameter; 
the horse-bean is much less, often not 
much more than half an inch in length 
and three-eighths of an inch in diameter. 
Beans are very nutritious, containing 36 
per cent of starch and 23 per cent of 
nitrogenous matter called legumin, anal¬ 
ogous to the casein in cheese. The bean 
is an annual, from 2 to 4 feet high. The 
flowers are beautiful and fragrant The 
kidney-bean, French bean, or haricot is 
the Phasedlus vulgdris, a well-known cul¬ 
inary vegetable. There are two principal 
varieties, annual dwarfs and runners. 
The beans cultivated in America and 
largely used as articles of food belong 
to the genus Phasedlus. The scarlet-run¬ 
ner bean ( Phasedlus coccineus) , a native 
of Mexico, is cultivated on account of its 
long rough pods and its scarlet flowers. 


— -St. Ignatius's bean is not really a bean, 
but the seed of a large climbing shrub, 
of the order Loganiaceae, nearly allied to 
the species of Strychnos which produces 
nux vomica. 

Bean-froose (Anser segetum), a spe- 
® cies of wild goose, a mi¬ 

gratory bird which arrives in Britain in 
autumn and retires to the north in the 
end of April, though some few remain to 
breed. Being rather smaller than the 
common wild goose, it is sometimes called 
the small gray goose. 

"Rpqyi-I rina* the person chosen king in 
Jjcciii -ixiiigj Twelfth Night festivities 

in virtue of having got the piece of cake 
containing the bean buried in the cake 
for this purpose. 

Bear ( bar )* tbe name of several large 
** plantigrade carnivorous mam¬ 
mals of the genus JJrsus. The teeth are 
forty-two in number, as in the dog, but 
there is no carnassial or sectorial tooth, 
and the molars have a more tubercular 
character than in other carnivores. The 
eyes have a nictitating membrane, the 
nose is prominent and mobile, and the 
tail very short. The true bears are about 
ten in number, natives chiefly of Europe, 
Asia, and N. America. They generally 
lie dormant in their dens during the win¬ 
ter months. The brown or black bear of 
Europe is the Ursus arctos. It is a 



Brown Bear (Urstis arctos). 


native of almost all the northern parts of 
Europe and Asia, and was at one time 
common in the British islands. It feeds 
on fruits, roots, honey, ants, and, in 
case of need, on mammals. It sometimes 
reaches the length of 7 feet, the largest 
specimens being found furthest to the 
north. It lives solitarily. The Amer¬ 
ican black bear is the U. Americanus, 
with black shining hair, and rarely above 
5 feet in length. It is a great climber, is 
less dangerous than the brown bear, and 
is hunted for its fur and flesh. The 
grizzly bear ( TJ . ferox or horribilis) is 
an inhabitant of the Rocky Mountains; 




Bear 


Bearing 


it is a ferocious animal, sometimes 9 feet 
in length, and has a bulky and unwieldy 
form, but is nevertheless capable of great 
rapidity of motion. The extinct cave- 
bear (U. spelmis) seems to have been 
closely akin to the grizzly. The Siberian 
bear ( U . colldris) is perhaps a variety 
of the brown bear. The polar or white 



Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus ). 


bear ( U . maritimus) is an animal pos¬ 
sessed of great strength and fierceness. 
It lives in the polar regions, frequents 
the sea, feeds on fish, seals, etc., and 
usually is 7 to 8 feet in length. The 
Malayan or cocoanut palm bear (U. Mal¬ 
ay anus) is perhaps the smallest of the 
bears. It inhabits Cochin-China, Nepaul, 
the Sunda Islands, etc., lives exclusively 
on vegetable food, and is an expert climb¬ 
er. It is called also sunbear and bruang. 
The Indian black bear or sloth-bear of 
India and Ceylon ( U . labidtus) is re¬ 
puted to be a fierce and dangerous animal. 
Bear or ® ERE > a species of barley 
9 (Hordeum hexastichum) , having 
six rows in the ear, cultivated in Scot¬ 
land and the north of England. 

Bear Great an( l Little, the popular 
9 name of two constellations in the 
northern hemisphere. The Great Bear 
(Ursa Major) is situated near the pole. 
It is remarkable for its well-known seven 
stars, by two of which, called the Point¬ 
ers, the pole-star is always readily found. 
These seven stars are popularly called the 
Wagon, Charles's Wain, or the Plow. 
The Little Bear ( Ursa Minor) is the 
constellation which contains the pole-star. 
This constellation has seven stars placed 
together in a manner resembling those 
in the Great Bear. 

Bear-baiting*. the , s P° rt of baiting 

or hunting bears with 
dogs, formerly one of the established 
amusements, not only of the common peo- 
ple, but of the nobility and even royalty 
itself. The places where bears were 
publicly baited were called bear-gardens 


Bearberrv (Arctostapliylos uva ursi ), 
cci uc i) an ever g reen s hrub of the 

heath family growing on the barren 
moors of Scotland, Northern Europe, Si¬ 
beria, and N. America. The leaves, un¬ 
der the name of uva ursi , are used in 
medicine as an astringent and tonic. 
Beard (herd), the hair round the chin, 
on the cheeks, and the upper 
lip which is a distinction of the male sex 
and of manhood. It differs from the hair 
on the head by its greater hardness and 
its form. Some nations have hardly any, 
others a great profusion. The latter gen¬ 
erally consider it as a great ornament; 
the former pluck it out; as, for instance, 
the American Indians. The beard has 
often been considered as a mark of the 
sage and the priest. Moses forbade the 
Jews to shave their beards. With the 
ancient Germans the cutting off of an¬ 
other’s beard was a high offense. Even 
now the beard is regarded as a mark of 
great dignity among many nations in the 
East, as the Turks. Alexander the Great 
introduced shaving among the Greeks, by 
ordering his soldiers to wear no beards; 
among the Romans it was introduced in 
B.c. 296. The custom of shaving is said 
to have come into use in modern times 
during the reigns of Louis XIII and 
XIV of France, both of whom ascended 
the throne without a beard. Till then 
fashion had given divers forms of mus¬ 
taches and beards. It was only in com¬ 
paratively recent times that beards and 
mustaches again became common. This 
name is also given to the awns or aristae 
of certain cereals, such as wheat, rye,, 
etc., bristle-like projections from the 
bract in the inflorescence, produced by a 
prolongation of the midrib. 
'RparH-a , rqqc a name given to two 

J5eara dbs, well _ known British 

grasses of the genus Polypogon from the 
bearded appearance of the panicles. 

Beard-moss \P* nea Jbarbdta), a 

lichen of gray color, 
forming a shaggy coat on many forest 
trees. 


Beardstown, a F ity ^ f 0 Cas .® Co *» Im - 

T . , 9 nois, 112 miles n. of 

fet. Eouis. It is on Illinois River and 
has large fishing and ice-packing in¬ 
dustries; also various manufactures. 
Pop. 6107. 


Bearing* ( bar ' in £), the direction or 
point of the compass in 
which an object is seen, or the situation 
of one object in regard to another, with 
reference to the points of the compass. 
Ihus, if from a certain situation an ob- 
ject is seen in the direction of northeast, 
the bearing of the object is said to be 
N. e. from the situation.— To take bear- 











BROWN BEAR WASHING HER CUBS 

The brown bear is found in Northern and Central Europe and Asia. It lives on flesh as well 
as vegetable food. The bear is a clean animal, and early teaches its young to wash themselves. 


















* 

' 



















* 


































































































































































* 




- V.. 




































































































Bear Lake 


Beattie 


ings, to ascertain on what point of the 
compass objects lie. 

"Rpar T qVp Great, an extensive 

AJCdi jjciivCj gheet of fregh water . n 

the Northwest Territory of Canada, be¬ 
tween about 65° and 67° 32' n. lat.; and 
under the 120th degree of w. Ion.; of ir¬ 
regular shape; area about 14,000 sq. 
miles. The water is very clear and the 
lake abounds in fish.— Bear-lake River, 
the outlet at the s. w. extremity of 
Great Bear Lake, runs s. w. for 70 miles 
and joins the Mackenzie River. 

"Rpovn (ba-arn), one of the provinces 
cam . nto w j 1 j c j 1 p r ance was for¬ 
merly divided, now chiefly included in the 
department of Lower Pyrenees. Pau is 
the chief town. There is a peculiar and 
well-marked dialect—the Bearnese— 

spoken in this district, which has much 
more affinity with the Spanish than with 
the French. 

'RpQv-rnt a deep, open pit with perpen- 
- DC P > dicular walls, built in a zoo¬ 
logical garden for keeping bears, and 
having in the center a pole in which they 
may exercise their climbing powers. 
TJpQv "Riirpv a river of the United 

.□ear xuvei, gtates? 400 miles long . 

rises in the north of Utah, and flows 
northward into Idaho; turns abruptly 
southward, re-enters Utah, and empties 
into Great Salt Lake. 

Bear’s Grease, ! he f{ \ t of bears > es ; 

’ teemed as of great 
efficacy in nourishing and promoting the 
growth of hair. The unguents sold under 
this name, however, are in a great meas¬ 
ure made of hog’s lard or veal fat, or a 
mixture of both, scented and slightly 
colored. 

■Dpoo (be'as), a river of India. See 

jjcao Bias. 

Beat (l>et), in music, the beating or 
jjccil pulsation resulting from the 
joint vibrations of two sounds of the same 
strength, and all but in unison. Also a 
short shake or transient grace-note struck 
immediately before the note it is intended 
to ornament. 

"Rpatifieatimi (be-at-i-fi-ka'shun), in 

-Beaiincaiion the Roman catholic 

Church, an act by which the pope declares 
a person beatified or blessed after his 
death. It is the usual preliminary to 
canonization, that is, the raising one to 
the honor and dignity of a saint. Canon¬ 
ization, however, does not necessarily fol¬ 
low. All certificates or attestations of 
virtues and miracles, the necessary quali¬ 
fications for saintship, are examined by 
the Congregation of Rites. This examina¬ 
tion often continues for several years; 
after which his holiness decrees the 
beatification, and the corpse and relics of 


the future saint are exposed to the ven¬ 
eration of all good Christians. 

Beating the Bounds, . the 1 period_ 

& ’ ical survey 

or perambulation by which the boundaries 
of parishes in England are preserved. It 
is, or was, the custom that the clergyman 
of the parish, with the parochial officers 
and the boys of the parish school, should 
march to the boundaries, which the boys 
struck with willow rods. A similar 
ceremony in Scotland is called riding the 
marches. 

'Rpnfmi (be'ton), David, Archbishop 
of St. Andrews, and cardinal; 
born 1494. Pope Paul III raised him to 
the rank of cardinal in December, 1538. 
On the death of his uncle, Archbishop 
James Beaton, he succeeded him in the 
see of St. Andrews in 1539. After the 
accession of Mary he became Chancellor 
of Sc<ftland, and distinguished himself by 
his zeal in persecuting members of the 
Reformed party, among the rest the 
famous Protestant preacher George Wish- 
art, whose sufferings at the stake he 
viewed from his window with apparent 
exultation. At length a conspiracy was 
formed against him, and he was assassin¬ 
ated at his own castle of St. Andrews, 
on the 29th May, 1546. His private char¬ 
acter was fiercely attacked by his enemies. 
■Rpa+ripp (be'a-tres), a city of Gage 
-DedlliLC C0lmty> Nebraska, 43 miles 

south of Lincoln. It is a railroad center, 
and has important brick, flour, iron and 
other works. Pop. 7875. 

Beatrice Portinari 

the poetical idol of Dante; born about 
1266; died in 1290: the daughter of a 
wealthy citizen of Florence, and wife of 
Simone de Bardi. She was but eight 
years of age, and Dante nine, when he 
met her first at the house of her father. 
He altogether saw her only once or twice, 
and she probably knew little of him. 
The story of his love is recounted in the 
Vita Nuova, which was mostly written 
after her death. 

"Rpo+tip (be'ti), James, a Scottish 
-Decline p 0 et and miscellaneous 
writer; born at Laurencekirk, Kin¬ 
cardineshire, in 1735; died at Aberdeen 
1803. He studied at Marischal College, 
Aberdeen, for four years, and received 
the M.A. degree. In 1753 he was ap¬ 
pointed schoolmaster at Fordoun, a few 
miles from his native place; from whence 
he obtained a mastership in the Grammar 
School of Aberdeen, and ultimately was 
installed professor of moral philosophy 
and logic in Marischal College. In 1760 
he published a volume of poems, which he 
subsequently endeavored to buy up, con- 



Beattie 


Beaumarchais 


sidering them unworthy of him. In 1765 
he published a poem, the Judgment of 
Paris, and in 1770 his celebrated Essay 
on Truth, for which the University of 
Oxford conferred on him the degree of 
LL.D.; and George III honored him, 
when on a visit to London, with a private 
conference and a pension. He next pub¬ 
lished in 1771 the first book of his poem 
the Minstrel, and in 1774 the second; 
this is the only work by which he is now 
remembered. In 1776 he published Dis¬ 
sertations on Poetry and Music, Laughter 
and Ludicrous Composition, etc.; in 1783 
Dissertations, Moral and Critical; in 
1786 Evidences of the Christian Religion; 
and in 1790-93 Elements of Moral 
Science. His closing years were dark¬ 
ened by the death of his two sons. 
Beattie ( bg 'ti)i William, a Scottish 
a 0 c physician, poet, and miscel¬ 
laneous writer; born in 1793; died at 
London in 1875. He was author of the 
standard Life of Thomas Campbell, whose 
intimate friend he was; published several 
poems, including John Huss, The Helio¬ 
trope, and Polynesia; wrote a series of 
descriptive and historical works, beauti¬ 
fully illustrated by his friend and fellow- 
traveler, W. H. Bartlett, on Switzer¬ 
land, Scotland, The Waldenses, The 
Danube, Castles and Abbeys of England, 
etc. 

"Rpanrairp (bo-kar), a small, well- 
iseaucaire built> commercial city of 

Southern France, dep. Gard, on the 
Rhone opposite Tarascon, with which it 
communicates by a fine suspension-bridge. 
It is chiefly famous for its great fair 
(founded in 1217), held yearly from the 
21st to the 28th July. Pop. 7284. 

Beauchamp (b5 ‘sh;in),A lphonse de, 

R a French historian and 
publicist, born at Monaco in 1767; died 
at Paris in 1832. Under the Directory he 
had the surveillance of the press, a posi¬ 
tion which supplied him with materials 
for his History of La Vendee. He con¬ 
tributed to the Moniteur and the Gazette 
de France. Among his chief works are 
the History of the Conquest of Peru, the 
History of Brazil, and the Life of Louis 
XVIII. The Memoires of Eouche is also 
with good reason ascribed to him.* 

Beaufort (b6 ' for ^’ Henr J’ cardinal 

natural son of John of 
Gaunt and half-brother of Henry IV, 
king of England, born 1377, died 1447; 
was made Bishop of Lincoln, whence he 
was transferred to Winchester. He re¬ 
peatedly filled the office of lord-chancellor, 
and took part in all the most important 
political movements of his times. 

Beaue’encv ( b6 ' zb an-se), an ancient 
° J town, France, dep. Loi- 


ret, on the Loire, of some historical in¬ 
terest. General Chanzy was defeated 
here by the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg, 
7th-Sth December, 1870. Pop. 2993. 

Beauharnais ( b °-ar-na), alexan- 

dre, Viscount, was 
born in 1760 in Martinique. He married 
Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, who 
was afterwards the wife of Napoleon. 
At the breaking out of the French revolu¬ 
tion he was chosen a member of the Na¬ 
tional Assembly, of which he was for 
some time president. In 1792 he was 
general of the army of the Rhine. He 
was falsely accused of having promoted 
the surrender of Mainz, and was sen¬ 
tenced to the guillotine, July 23, 1794. 
"Rppn"h ryinist Eugene de, Duke of 

i5eaunarnais, Leuchtenberg> Prince 

of Eichstadt, and Viceroy of Italy, during 
the reign of Napoleon, was born in 1781; 
died at Munich in 1824. He was the son 
of Alexandre Beauharnais and Josephine, 
afterwards wife of Napoleon and Em¬ 
press of France. After his father’s death 
he joined Hoche in La Vendee and sub¬ 
sequently studied for a time in Paris. 
He accompanied Napoleon to Egypt in 
1798; rose rapidly in the army; was ap¬ 
pointed viceroy of Italy in 1805; and 
married a daughter of the King of 
Bavaria in 1806. He administered tho 
government of Italy with great prudence 
and moderation, and was much beloved by 
his subjects. In the Russian campaign 
he commanded the third corps d'armee, 
and greatly distinguished himself. To 
him and to Ney France was mainly in¬ 
debted for the preservation of the remains 
of her army during the retreat from Mos¬ 
cow. After the battle of Liitzen of May 
2, 1813, where, by surrounding the right 
wing of the enemy, he decided the fate 
of the day, he went to Italy, which he 
defended against the Austrians until the 
deposition of Napoleon. After the fall of 
Napoleon he concluded an armistice, by 
which he delivered Lombardy and all 
Upper Italy to the Austrians. He then 
went immediately to Paris, and thence to 
his father-in-law at Munich, where he 
afterwards resided.—His sister Hor- 
tense EugSnie, Queen of Holland, was 
born in 1783, died in 1837. She became 
Queen of Holland by marrying Louis 
Bonaparte, and after Louis’s abdication 
of the throne she lived apart from him. 
She wrote several excellent songs, and 
composed some deservedly popular airs, 
among others the well-known Partant 
pour la Syrie. Napoleon III was her 
third and youngest son. 

Beaumarchais (bo-mar-sha) Pierre 

Augustin Caron 
de, a French wit and dramatist, was born 



Beaumaris 


Beaumont 


at Paris in 3732; died in 1799. lie was 
the son of a watchmaker named Caron, 
whose trade he practised for a time. He 
early gave striking proofs of his mechan¬ 
ical and also of his musical talents; at¬ 
tained proficiency as a player on the 
guitar and harp, and was appointed harp- 
master to the daughters of Louis XV. 
By a rich marriage (after which he added 
‘ de Beaumarchais’ to his name) he laid 
the foundation of the immense wealth 
which he afterwards accumulated by his 
speculations, and which was also in¬ 
creased by a second marriage. In the 
meantime he occupied himself with litera¬ 
ture, and published two dramas— Eu¬ 
genie in 1767 and Les Deux Amis in 
1770. He first really distinguished him¬ 
self by his Mtimoires (Paris, 1774), or 
statements in connection with a lawsuit, 
which by their wit, satire, and liveliness 
entertained all France. The Barber of 
Seville (1775) and the Marriage of Fi¬ 
garo (1784) have given him a permanent 
reputation. His last work was Mes Six 
Bpoques, in which he relates the dangers 
to which he was exposed in the revolu¬ 
tion. At the opening of the American 
Revolution he made, as the secret agent 
of the French government, a contract to 
supply the colonies with arms and am¬ 
munition. He lost about a million livres 
by his edition of the works of Voltaire 
(1785), and still more at the end of 
1792 by his attempt to provide the French 
army with 60,000 muskets. He was a 
singular instance of versatility of talent, 
being at once an artist, politician, finan¬ 
cier, and dramatist. 

■Rpanmnr'U (bo-ma'ris), a seaport 

.Beaumaris town> North Wales> Isle 

of Anglesey, on the Menai Strait. It is a 
favorite watering-place, and contains the 
remains of a castle built by Edward I 
about 1295. Pop. 2233. 

■Rpanmrmt (bo'mont), Francis, and 
Jjedi uiiiuii L Fletcher, John, two 

eminent English dramatic writers, con¬ 
temporaries of Shakespere, and the most 
famous of literary partners. The former, 
son of a common pleas judge, was born 
at Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire, in 1584; 
died in 1616, and was buried in West¬ 
minster Abbey. At the age of sixteen he 
published a translation, in verse, of Ovid’s 
fable of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus , 
and before nineteen became the friend of 
Ben Jonson. With Fletcher also he was 
early on terms of friendship. He married 
Ursula, daughter of Henry Isley of Sun- 
dridge, in Kent, by whom he left two 
daughters. —John Fletcher was born 
at Rye, Sussex, in 1579. His father was 
successively dean of Peterborough, bishop 
of Bristol, Worcester, and London. The 
28—1 


Woman Hater, produced in 1606-7, is the 
earliest work known to exist in which he 
had a hand. It does not appear that he 
was ever married. He died in London 
of the plague, August, 1625, and was 
buried at St. Saviour’s, Southwark. The 
friendship of Beaumont and Fletcher, like 
their literary partnership, was singularly 
close; they lived in the same house, and 
are said to have even had their clothes 
in common. The works that pass under 
their names consist of over fifty plays, a 
masque, and some minor poems, it is 
believed that all the minor poems except 
one were written by Beaumont. After 
the death of Beaumont, Fletcher con¬ 
tinued to write plays alone or with other 
dramatists. It is now difficult, if not in¬ 
deed impossible, to determine with cer¬ 
tainty the respective shares of the two 
poets in the plays passing under their 
names. According to the testimony of 
some of their contemporaries Beaumont 
possessed the deeper and more thoughtful 
genius, Fletcher the gayer and more 
idyllic. Among their dramas are The 
Maid’s Tragedy, Philaster, Cupids Re¬ 
venge, etc. The Masque of the Inner 
Temple was written by Beaumont alone. 
The Faithful Shepherdess and others by 
Fletcher alone. 


a city, capital of Jeffer¬ 
son Co., Texas, 84 miles 
E. by N. of Houston; has very large 
shingle, saw, and rice mills, also large 
oil refineries and iron and steel plants, 
etc. The lumber industry here is very 
important and there are large oil wells 
in the vicinity. Pop. 20,640. 

Sir George, born of an 
ancient family in Lei¬ 
cestershire in 1753, died in 1827. He pos¬ 
sessed considerable skill as a landscape- 
painter, but was noted more especially 
as a munificent patron of the arts. The 
establishment of the National Gallery 
was mainly due to his exertions. 

Sir John, born in 1582; 
died in 1628; brother of 


Beaumont, 


Beaumont, 


Beaumont, 


Francis Beaumont the dramatist; pub¬ 
lished Bosworth Field, an historical 
poem. He also wrote a poem in eight 
books, never printed, called The Crown 
of Thorns. 


Joseph, born in 1615; 
died in 1699; descended 
from an old Leicestershire family. In 
1663 he became master of Peterhouse Col¬ 
lege, Cambridge. Wrote Psyche, or Love's 
Mystery, a poem once very popular, and 
an attack on Henry More’s Mystery of 
Godliness, for which he received the 
thanks of the university. 


Beaumont, 


Beaumont 


William, an American 
9 surgeon, born in 1785; 



Beaune 


Beaver 


died in 1853. His experiments on diges¬ 
tion with the Canadian St. Martin, who 
lived for years after receiving a gunshot 
wound in the stomach which left an 
aperture of about two inches in diam¬ 
eter, were of great importance to physio¬ 
logical science. 

Tlpsmnp ( b5n )> a town, France, dep. 
x»edune C6te d , 0r> 23 miles s< s> w< of 

Dijon, well built, with handsome medi¬ 
eval church, a large library, museum, etc., 
and a trade in the fine Burgundy and 
other wines of the district. Pop. ±1,668. 
Tlpannp (bon), Florimond, a distin- 
J c guished mathematician and 

friend of Descartes, born at Blois in 
1601; died at the same place in 1652. 
He may be regarded as the founder of 
the integral calculus. 

T3pn n vpo’q rrl (bo-re-gard), Peter Gus- 
jDCctuiegdiu TAVUS Toutant a gen . 


eral of the Confederate troops in the 
American Civil war; born in 1818 near 
New Orleans. He studied at the mili¬ 
tary academy, West Point, and left it 
as artillery lieutenant in 1838. He 
served in the Mexican war, and on the 
outbreak of the Civil war joined the Con¬ 
federates. He commanded at the bom¬ 
bardment of Fort Sumter, gained the 
battle of Bull Run, lost that of Shiloh, 
assisted in the defense of Charleston, and 
aided Lee in that of Richmond. He died 
Feb. 20, 1893. 


Beausobre ^2n 5 '* r 2f I ® A ^ c ’JS )orn in 

1659 at Niort, in France; 
died at Berlin in 1738. In 1683 he be¬ 
came Protestant minister of Chatillon-sur- 
Indre, but was compelled by persecution 
to go into exile in 1685. In 1694 he be¬ 
came minister to French Protestants at 
Berlin. He enjoyed much of the favor 
both of Frederick William I and of the 
crown prince, afterwards Frederick the 
Great. His most important work is the 
Histoire Critique de Manichee et du Man- 
icheisme (1734). 

Beailtv The Beautiful. See iEs- 

J > THETICS. 


BeailVais ( bb -va; ancient Bellova- 
cum), a town of France, 
capital of the department of Oise, at 
the^ confluence of the Avelon with the 
Therain, 43 miles north of Paris, poorly 
built, but with some fine edifices, 
the choir of the uncompleted cathe¬ 
dral being one of the finest speci¬ 
mens of Gothic architecture in France. 
Beauvais is a very old town, dating back 
to the Roman period. In 1472 it resisted 
an army of 80.000 Burgundians under 
Charles the Bold. On this occasion the 
women particularly distinguished them¬ 
selves, and one of them, Jeanne Laing, 
called La Hachette, seeing a soldier plant¬ 


ing a standard on the wall, seized it and 
hurled him to the ground. The banner 
is preserved in the town-hall, and an 



Beauvais Cathedral. Doorway, South Transept. 

annual procession of young girls commem¬ 
orates the deed. Manufactures : tapestry 
and carpets, trimmings, woolen cloth, cot¬ 
tons, etc. Pop. (1906) 17,045. 

T3nnTr Pr ( be'v£r), a rodent quadruped, 
cdvci about 2 feet in length exclu¬ 
sive of the tail, genus Castor (C . fiber), 
at one time common in the northern re¬ 
gions of both hemispheres, but now found 
in considerable numbers only in North 
America, living in colonies, but occurring 
solitary in Central Europe and Asia. It 
has short ears, a blunt nose, small fore¬ 
feet, large webbed hind-feet, with a flat 
ovate tail covered with scales on its upper 
surface. It is valued for its fur, which 
used to be largely employed in the manu¬ 
facture of hats, but for which silk is now 
for the most part substituted, and for an 
odoriferous secretion named castor, at one 
time in high repute, and still largely used 
in some parts of the world as an anti- 












Beaver 


Bechstein 


spasmodic medicine. The food of the 
beaver consists of the bark of trees, leaves, 
roots, and berries. Their favorite haunts 
are rivers and lakes which are bordered 
by forests. In winter they live in houses, 
which are 3 to 4 feet high, built by them 
on the water’s edge, and being substantial 
structures with the entrance under water, 
afford the inmates protection from wolves 
and other wild animals. These dwellings 
are called beaver * lodges,’ each accommo¬ 
dating a single family. They also live in 
burrows. They can gnaw through large 
trees with their strong teeth, this being 
done partly to obtain food, partly to get 
materials for houses or dam-building. 
When they find a stream not sufficiently 
deep for their purpose they throw across 
it a dam constructed with great ingenuity 
of wood, stones, and mud. 

■Rpavpr the movable faceguard of a 
uca vex, helmet, so fitted on as to be 
raised and lowered. 

VPrdfl in a c ^ty of Dodge Co., 
■° ed vei UclIIl, Wisconsin, at the s. e. 

end of Beaver Lake, 63 miles N. w. of 
Milwaukee. It is a summer resort and 
has cotton, woolen, and other industries. 
Pop. 6758. 

'Rpa'irpv TTollc a borough of Pennsyl- 

ueaver idiit>, vania> near the junc . 

tion of the Beaver River with the Ohio, 
34 miles from Pittsburgh. Its industries 
include file, wire, tube-glass and various 
other works. There are coal mines, quar¬ 
ries, and natural gas wells in its vicinity. 
Pop. 12,191. 

■RpQTT-pr-rnt (Hydromys clirys o g a s- 
BVdVei Ictl ter ^ a Tasmanian ro¬ 
dent quadruped, inhabiting the banks both 
of salt and fresh waters. They are ad¬ 
mirable swimmers and divers, and ex¬ 
ceedingly shy. 

"Rp'hppvn (b e-b e'r u ; Nectandra Ro- 
udueciu dioei), a tree of British 
Guiana, yielding greenheart timber. 

Bee (bek), a celebrated abbey of France, 
in Normandy, near Brionne, now 
represented only by some ruins. Lan- 
franc and Anselm were both connected 
with this abbey. 

Beccafico a European 

bird ( Sylvia liortensis), 
the garden-warbler. 

'Rpprafnrm* (bek-a-fo'me), DomenTco, 

-deccaiumi an Italian painter born 

near Sienna in the latter half of the fif¬ 
teenth century, enriched the churches of 
Sienna with many noble frescoes and 
other paintings. He drew and colored 
well, and possessed strong inventive 
powers. He died at Sienna 1551, and 
was buried in its cathedral. 

"Rprpnrisi (bek-a-re'U), Cesare Bone- 

AJCdddiia gANAj Mabchese di> x ta ii an 


economist and writer on penal laws; born 
in 1735 or 1738; died in 1793. He is 
principally known from his treatise, On 
Crimes and Punishments , which was 
speedily translated into various lan¬ 
guages, and to which many of the re¬ 
forms in the penal codes of the principal 
European nations are traceable. He be¬ 
came professor of political economy at 
Milan, where he died. 

■Rppparia (bek-a-re'a), Giovanni 
-DCLO cliid, Batista, an Italian natural 

philosopher, born 1716; died 1781; was 
appointed professor of experimental phys¬ 
ics at Turin, 1748; author of a treatise 
on Natural and Artificial Electricity, Let¬ 
ters on Electricity, etc. He contributed 
several articles to the Transactions of the 
Royal Society of London, and was com¬ 
missioned in 1759 to measure an arc of 
the meridian in the neighborhood of 
Turin. 

"RpppIpc (bek'lz), a town of England 
JjcLLIcb in Suffolk> 33 m iles N. n. e. 

from Ipswich, on the right bank of the 
Waveney; has a fine church of the four¬ 
teenth century, and a good trade coast¬ 
wise. Pop. 7139. 

15pnpi’T , ci (be-ther a), Gaspar, a Span- 
jjci/Ciici ish painter and sculptor, 
born 1520; died 1570. He studied under 
Michael Angelo at Rome, and is credited 
with the chief share in the establishment 
of the fine arts in Spain. 

■Rpp'hp (bash), Sir Henry de la, an 
cliic English geologist, born 1796; 
died 1855. He founded the geological sur¬ 
vey of Great Britain, which was soon 
undertaken by the government, De la 
Beche being appointed director-general. 
He also founded the Jermyn Street 
Museum of Economic or Practical Ge¬ 
ology, and the School of Mines. His 
principal works are: Geology of Jamaica, 
Classification of European Rocks, Geologi¬ 
cal Manual, Researches in Theoretical 
Geology, Geology of Cornwall, Devon, and 
West Somerset, etc. 

Beche-de-Mer r r f p b a ^ mirh See 

"RppTipv (beft'er), Johann Joachim, 
liici German chemist, born in 1632 ; 
died in London in 1682. He became a 
professor at Mainz; was elected a mem¬ 
ber of the Imperial council at Vienna, 
1660, but fell into disgrace and subse¬ 
quently resided in various parts of Ger¬ 
many, Holland, Italy, Sweden, and Great 
Britain. His chief work, Physica Suhter- 
ranea, containing many of the fanciful 
theories of the alchemists, was published 
in 1669, and enlarged in 1681. 

Bechstein (beft'stin), Johann Mat¬ 
thaus, a German natural¬ 
ist, born in 1757; died in 1822. He wrote 



Bechuanas 


Beckford 


a popular natural history of Germany, 
and various works on forestry, in which 
subject his labors were highly valuable. 
In Britain he is best known by a treatise 
on cage birds. 

Betciiuanas (b e c h- 
wan'az), a widely 
spread race of people inhabiting the cen¬ 
tral region of South Africa north of Cape 
Colony. They belong to the great Kaffir 
stem, and are divided into tribal sections. 
They live chiefly by husbandry and cattle 
rearing, and they work with some skill 
in iron, copper, ivory, and skins. They 
have been much harassed by Boers and 
others, and this led them to seek British 
protection. From 1878 to 1880 South 
Bechuanaland was partly administered by 
British officers; and in 1884 and 1885 
great part of the rest of their territory 
was brought under British influence, the 
farthest northern portion of it. however, 
reaching to the Zambesi, being only a 
protectorate. The area is 51,500 sq. m., 
and pop. 73,000. Capital Vryburg. An¬ 
other important town is Mafeking, which 
was conspicuous in the Anglo-Boer war. 
Northward of the crown colony lies the 
Bechuanaland Protectorate, with an area 
estimated at 386,000 sq. m.; population 
unknown. Bechuanaland lies between the 
Transvaal on the east and the German 
Protectorate on the west. It is, generally 
speaking, flat or only slightly undulating, 
and is essentially a grass country, all the 
grasses being of a substantial and nutri¬ 
tious quality which stands well against 
drought. Surface water is scarce, but 
there is an extraordinary underground 
supply which no doubt will be turned to 
profitable account. Some parts are 
wooded and well watered. Gold, coal, 
and copper have been found. 

"RppVav (bek'er), George F., geologist, 
■DCOJACI born at New York in 1847; 

graduated at Harvard ; instructor in min¬ 
ing at University of California 1875-79; 
afterwards on the U. S. Geological Sur¬ 
vey. In 1898 he was sent to examine 
the mineral resources of the Philippines. 
Wrote several works on the geology of 
the western mining region. 

Becker Wilhelm Adolf, a German 
’ archaeologist, born at Dresden 
in 1796 ; died at Meissen in 1846. In 1828 
he became a teacher at Meissen, in 1837 
was appointed extraordinary professor of 
classical archaeology at Leipsic, and in 
1842 ordinary professor. Best known 
works: Gallus, oder romische Scenen aus 
der Zcit Augusts, and Charildes, Oder 
Bilder altgriechischer Sitte, which repro¬ 
duce in a wonderful manner the social 
life of old Rome and Greece; also a Man¬ 
ual of Roman Antiquities. 


Bechuanas, 


■RapVaI (bek'et), Thomas (the form 
^ Becket is also common), 
Archbishop of Canterbury, born in London 
1117 or 1119; assassinated in Canterbury 
Cathedral. 29th Dec., 1170. He was edu¬ 
cated at Oxford and Paris, and was sent, 
by the favor of Theobald, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, to study civil law at Bologna 
in Italy, and on his return made Arch¬ 
deacon of Canterbury and Provost of 
Beverley. In 1158 Henry II appointed 
him high-chancellor and preceptor to his 
son, Prince Henry—the first instance after 
the Conquest of a high office being filled 
by a native Englishman. At this period 
he was a complete courtier, conforming in 
every respect to the humor of the king. 
He was, in fact, the king’s prime com¬ 
panion, held splendid levees, and courted 
popular applause. On the death of Theo¬ 
bald, 1162, he was consecrated archbishop, 
when he displayed an extraordinary aus¬ 
terity of character, and appeared as a 
zealous champion of the church against 
the aggressions of the king, whose policy 
was to have the clergy in subordination 
to the civil power. Becket was forced to 
assent to the ‘ Constitutions of Clarendon,’ 
but a series of bitter conflicts with the 
king followed, ending in Becket’s flight to 
France, when he appealed to the pope, 
by whom he was supported. After much 
negotiation a sort of reconciliation took 
place in 1170, and Becket returned to 
England, resumed his office, and renewed 
his defiance of the royal authority. A 
rash hint from the king induced four 
barons, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de 
Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard 
Breto, to go to Canterbury and murder 
the archbishop while at vespers in the 
cathedral. He was canonized in 1172, 
and the splendid shrine erected at Can¬ 
terbury for the remains was, for three 
centuries, a favorite place of pilgrim¬ 
age. 

“Rpplrp+t Gilbert Abbot A’. See A 
JjcCKc II, Beckett. 

"PppVfnrrl (bek'ford), William, an 

-DecKioia. English writer faraous in 

his time for his immense wealth and his 
eccentricities. He was born at Fonthill, 
his father’s estate in Wiltshire, in 1759. 
In 1770 the death of his father left him 
in the possession of $5,000,000 of money, 
and an income of $500,000 a year. He 
traveled much, and for some time lived 
in Portugal. He expended an enormous 
sum in building and rebuilding Fonthill 
Abbey, near Salisbury, which he filled 
with rare and expensive works of art. 
Here he lived in seclusion for twenty 
years. In 1822 the abbey and greater 
part of its contents were sold, and he 
retired to Bath, where, with a much- 



Beckmann 


Beddoes 


diminished fortune, but one amply suffi¬ 
cient, he lived till 1844. His literary 
fame rests upon his eastern tale Vathek, 
which he wrote in French, and a transla¬ 
tion of which into English (said to be 
by a clergyman) appeared at London 
without his knowledge in 1784. The tale 
is still much read, and was highly com¬ 
mended by Lord Byron. He had two 
daughters, one of whom became Duchess 
of Hamilton, and brought his valuable 
library to this family.— William Beck- 
ford, his father, a London merchant and 
West Indian proprietor, was famous for 
a spirited speech made to George III 
when Lord Mayor of London., 
■RprVman-n (bek'man), Johann, Ger- 

uecKmaim man writer on the in _ 

dustrial arts and agriculture, born in 
1739, died 1811. He was for a short time 
professor of physics and natural history 
at St. Petersburg, and afterwards for al¬ 
most forty-five years professor of philos¬ 
ophy and economy in Gottingen. His 
History of Inventions is well known in 
its English translation. 

TJpoVy (beks), Pierre Jean, general 
^ or j er G f Jesuits, born 
near Louvain, Belgium, 1795; died 1887. 
The success of the Jesuits, especially in 
non-Catholic countries, was greatly due 
to his tact and energy. 

■Rpprmpvpl (bek-rel), Antoine Cesar, 
-DCI/L[Uci.ci a French physicist, born 

in 1788; died in 1878. He served as an 
officer of engineers, and retired in 1815, 
after which he devoted himself to the 
study of electricity, especially electro¬ 
chemistry. He refuted the ‘ theory of 
contact’ by which Volta explained the 
action of his pile or battery. Becquerel 
may be considered one of the creators of 
electrochemistry.—His son, Alexander 
Edmond, born in 1820; died in 1891, 
became distinguished in the study of the 
physical sciences, ascertained the mag¬ 
netic power of oxygen and discovered a 
chloride of silver that would receive and 
preserve colored impressions of light. He 
wrote Physico-Chemical Tones and treat¬ 
ises on electricity, physics and meteor¬ 
ology. 

'Pppcp (bech'e), Old, a town of Hun- 
i gary, 48 miles s. of Szegedin, 
on the right bank of the Theiss. Pop. 
18,865.— New Becse, a market-town on 
the left bank of the Theiss, 5 miles e. of 
Old Becse. Pop. 7000, or, with the im¬ 
mediately adjoining town of Franyova, 
about 15,000. Both places carry on an 
extensive trade in grain. 

TJppcVprplr (bech'ke-rek), a town of 
-DCLMieiCIS. South Hungary, on the 

Bega, 45 miles s. w. from Temesvar. with 
which it communicates by the Bega Canal. 


Trade in cattle and agricultural produce. 
Pop. 26,400. 

Bed Bedstead, an article of furniture 
9 to sleep or rest on. The term 
bed properly is applied to a large flat 
bag filled with feathers, down, wool, or 
other soft material, and also to a mattress 
supported on spiral springs or form of 
elastic chains or wire-work which is raised 
from the ground on a bedstead. The 
term, however, sometimes includes the 
bedstead or frame for supporting the bed. 
The forms of beds are necessarily very 
various—every period and country hav¬ 
ing its own form of bed. Air-beds and 
water-beds (which see) are much used 
by invalids. 

■Rp/I in geology, a layer or stratum, 
usually a stratum of considerable 
thickness. 

Beda. See Bede. 


Bedarieux C>a-<mr-i-«u), a thriving 

manufacturing town in 
Southern France, dep. Hgrault, situated 
on the Orb. Pop. (1906) 5594. 

Bedbug. See Bug. 


Bed-rbamber Loeds 0F THE > officers 

Clidlliuei, of the royal house¬ 
hold of Britain under the groom of the 
stole. They are twelve in number, and 
wait a week each in turn. In the case 
of a queen regnant these posts are occu¬ 
pied by ladies, called Ladies of the Bed¬ 
chamber. 


(bed'oz), Thomas, physician 
and author, born in 1760; 
educated at Oxford, London, and Edin¬ 
burgh ; appointed professor of chemistry 
at Oxford. There he published some ex¬ 
cellent chemical and medical treatises. 
His expressed sympathy with the French 
revolutionists led to his retirement from 
his professorship in 1792, soon after 
which he published his Observations on 
the Nature of Demonstrative Evidence 
and the exceedingly popular History of 
Isaac Jenkins. In 1794 he married a 
sister of Maria Edgeworth; and in 1798, 
with the pecuniary aid of Wedgewood, 
opened a pneumatic institution for curing 
phthisical and other diseases by inhala¬ 
tion of gases. It speedily became an 
ordinary hospital, but was noteworthy as 
connected with the discovery of the prop¬ 
erties of nitrous oxide, and as having 
been superintended by the young Hum¬ 
phry Davy. Beddoes’s essays on Con¬ 
sumption, on Fever , and his Hygeia had a 
high contemporary repute. He died in 
1808. 


Beddoes 


■Rprldnpc Thomas Lovell, dramatist, 
-Deuuueb, born in 1803 . published the 

Bride's Tragedy while an undergraduate 



Bede 


Bedford 


at Oxford, and led an eccentric life, dying 
in 1849. His work was largely fragmen¬ 
tary, but his posthumous Death’s Jest- 
hook, or the Fool’s Tragedy (1850), re¬ 
ceived the high praise of such judges as 
Landor and Browning. His Poems, with 
memoir, appeared in 1851. 

Bede also Beda, or B^eda, 

known as the Venerable, an An¬ 
glo-Saxon scholar, born in 672 or 673 in 
the neighborhood of Monkwearmouth, 
County Durham ; educated at St. Peter’s 
monastery, Wearmouth; took deacon’s 
orders in his nineteenth year at St. Paul’s 
monastery, Jarrow, and was ordained 
priest at thirty by John of Beverley, 
Bishop of Hexham. His life was spent 
in studious seclusion, the chief events in 
it being the production of homilies, 
hymns, lives of saints, commentaries, and 
works in history, chronology, grammar, 
etc. He was the most learned English¬ 
man of his day, and in some sense the 
father of English history, his most im¬ 
portant work being his Ilistoria Ecclesi- 
astica Gentis Anglorum (or ‘ Ecclesiasti¬ 
cal History of England’), afterwards 
translated by King Alfred into Anglo- 
Saxon. Besides his familiarity with 
Latin, he knew Greek and had some ac¬ 
quaintance with Hebrew. Most of his 
writings were on scriptural and ecclesias¬ 
tical subjects, but he also wrote on chro¬ 
nology, physical science, grammar, etc., 
and had considerable ability in the writ¬ 
ing of Latin verse. He died in 735, an 
interesting record of his closing days be¬ 
ing preserved in a letter by his pupil 
Cuthbert. His body was after a lapse 
of time removed from Jarrow church to 
Durham, but of the shrine which for¬ 
merly enclosed them only the Latin in¬ 
scription remains, ending with the verse 
‘ Hac sunt in fossa Bedse venerabilis 
ossa.’ 

Bedeguar, or Bedegar (bed'-e-g&r), 

° , a spongy excrescence or 

gall, sometimes termed sweet-briar sponge, 


a a, Bedeguar on the Rose, 
found on various species of roses, and 



produced by several insects as receptacles 
for their eggs, especially by the Cynips 
rosce. Once thought a diuretic and vermi¬ 
fuge. 

"RpHpII (be-del'), William, a cele- 
cuc brated Irish bishop, born in 
Essex in 1570. In 1604 he went to Ven¬ 
ice as chaplain to Sir Henry Wotton, and 
remained eight years. After holding the 
living of Horingsheath from 1615-27 he 
became provost of Trinity College, Dublin, 
and in 1629 Bishop of Kilmore and 
Ardagh, though he resigned the latter of 
the united sees in 1630. He set himself 
to reform abuses and promote the spread 
of Protestantism, procured the translation 
of the Old Testament into Irish, and by 
his tact and wisdom conciliated the ad¬ 
herents of both creeds. He underwent a 
brief imprisonment on the breaking out 
of the rebellion in 1641, and died in the 
year following. His biography was writ¬ 
ten by Bishop Burnet. 

Be'der Ware. See Bidery. 

'fnrrl (bed'furd), a municipal 
u u borough of England, the 
county town of Bedfordshire, on the 
Ouse. The chief buildings are the law 
courts, a range of public schools, a 
large infirmary, county jail, etc., and 

the churches. The town is rich in char¬ 
ities and educational institutions, the 
most prominent being the Bedford Char¬ 
ity, embracing grammar and other 

schools, and richly endowed. There is 
an extensive manufactory of agricultur¬ 
al implements; lace is also made, and 
there is a good trade. John Bunyan was 
born at Elstow, a village near the town, 

and it was at Bedford that he lived, 

preached, and was imprisoned. Pop. 
39,185.— Bedfordshire, or Beds, the 
county, is bounded by Northampton. 
Bucks, Herts, Cambridge, and Hunting¬ 
don ; area, 294,983 acres, of which 260,- 
000 are under tillage or in permanent 
pasture. Chalk hills, forming a portion 
of the Chilterns, cross it on the s.; n. of 
this is a belt of sand; the soil of the 
vale of Bedford, consisting mainly of 
clay and loam, is very fertile; and the 
meadows on the Ouse, Ivel, and other 
streams furnish rich pasturage. Two- 
thirds of the soil is under tillage. Be¬ 
sides the usual cereal and other crops, 
culinary ‘ vegetables are extensively cul¬ 
tivated for the London market. Principal 
manufactures: agricultural implements, 
and straw-plait for hats, which is made 
up principally at Dunstable and Luton. 
Pop. (1911) 195,814. 

John, Duke of, one of the 
younger sons of Henry IV, 
King of England; famous as a statesman 


Bedford, 




Bedford 


Bee 


and a warrior. He defeated the French 
fleet in 1416, commanded an expedition 
to Scotland in 1417, and was lieutenant 
of England during the absence of Henry 
V in France. On the king’s death he 
became regent of France, and for several 
years his policy was as successful as it 
was able and vigorous, the victory of 
Verneuil in 1424 attesting his generalship. 
The greatest stain on his memory is his 
execution of the Maid of Orleans (Joan 
of Arc) in 1431. He died in 1435 at 
Rouen. 

'R^d-Fr»vrl a city, capital of Lawrence 
.DCUIUIU, Co > Indiana> 71 mileg N w . 

of New Albany. It is in a region of ex¬ 
tensive stone quarries. Pop. 8716. 
"Rprl'lam a corruption of Bethlehem 
x>cu id , (Hospital), the name of a 
religious house in London, converted, after 
the general suppression by Henry VIII, 
into a hospital for lunatics. The original 
Bedlam stood in Bishopsgate Street, its 
modern successor is in St. George’s Fields. 
The lunatics were at one time treated 
as little better than wild beasts, and 
hence Bedlam came to be typical of any 
scene of wild confusion. 

Bedlis. See Betlis. 

‘RpHmiar (bed-mar'), Alphonso de la 
Cueva de, a Spanish car¬ 
dinal, born in 1572, was sent in 1607 by 
Philip HI as ambassador to Venice, and 
became famous through an alleged con¬ 
spiracy with the Milanese and Neapolitan 
governors to overthrow the republic of 
Venice and subject it to Spanish domina¬ 
tion. (1618). On its discovery Bedmar 
escaped, and was appointed governor of 
the Low Countries by the king and car¬ 
dinal by the pope. Died in 1655. The 
plot is the subject of Otway’s Venice Pre¬ 
served. 

Bed of Justice. See Lit de Justice. 

"RprinniYlsi (bed-q-enz'; Arabic Bedawi, 
-DCUUUmb p] BedudUf < dwellers of the 

desert’), a Mohammedan people of Arab 
race inhabiting chiefly the deserts of 
Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa. 
They lead a nomadic existence in tents, 
huts, caverns and ruins, associating in 
families under sheiks or in tribes under 
emirs. In respect of occupation they are 
only shepherds, herdsmen, and horse- 
breeders, varying the monotony of pas¬ 
toral life by raiding on each other and 
plundering unprotected travelers, whom 
they consider trespassers. They are 
ignorant of writing and books, their 
knowledge being purely traditional and 
mainly genealogical. They are lax in 
morals, and unreliable even in respect of 
the code of honor attributed to them in 


poetry and fiction. In stature they are 
undersized, and though active, they are 
not strong. The ordinary dress of the 
men is a long shirt girt at the loins, a 
black or red and yellow handkerchief for 
the head, and sandals; of the women, 
loose drawers, a long shirt, and a large 
dark-blue shawl covering the head and 
figure. The lance is the favorite weapon. 
"RpH-Qnrp« a troublesome kind of sores 
■°cu liable to appear on patients 

long confined to bed, and either unable or 
not allowed to change their position, and 
occurring at the parts chiefly pressed by 
the weight of the body. 

Bedstead. See Bed. 

"Rpd'c+ra tt 7 the popular name of the 
-Bed sxraw, different species of Ga¬ 
lium, a genus of plants, order Rubiaceae. 
The Yellow Bedstraw or Cheese-rennet 
( G. verum), the flowers and roots of 
which afford yellow and red dyes, is rare 
in New England. Goosegrass ( G. apar- 
ine) is a well-known member of the 
genus, the juice of which has been used 
in lepra and other cutaneous diseases. 
JJpp the common name given to a 
9 large family of hymenopterous or 
membranous-winged insects, of which the 
most important is the common hive or 
honey bee (Apis mellifica). It belongs 
to the warmer parts of the Eastern Hemi¬ 
sphere, but is now naturalized in the 
Western. A hive commonly consists of 
one mother or queen, from 600 to 800 
males or drones, and from 15,000 to 
20,000 working bees, formerly termed 
neuters, but now known to be imperfectly- 
developed females. The last-mentioned, 
the smallest, have twelve joints to their 
antennae, and six abdominal rings, and 
are provided with a sting; there is, ou 
the outside of the hind-legs, a smooth 
hollow, edged with hairs, called the bas¬ 
ket, in which the kneaded pollen or bee- 
bread, the food of the larvae, is stored for 
transit. The queen has the same charac¬ 
teristics, but is of larger size, especially 
in the abdomen; she has also a sting. 
The males, or drones, differ from both 
the preceding by having thirteen joints 
to the antennae; a rounded head, with 
larger eyes, elongated and united at the 
summit; and no stings. According to 
Huber the working-bees are themselves 
divisible into two classes: one, the ciri- 
eres, devoted to the collection of pro¬ 
visions, etc.; the other, smaller and more 
delicate, employed exclusively within the 
hive in rearing the young. The mouth of 
the bee is adapted for both masticatory 
and suctorial purposes, the honey being 
conveyed thence to the anterior stomach 
or crop, communicating with a second 



Bee 


Bee 


stomach in which alone a digestive proc¬ 
ess can be traced. The queen, whose 
sole office is to propagate the species, has 
two large ovaries, consisting of a great 
number of small cavities, each containing 



Mouths of Bees. 

sixteen or seventeen eggs. The inferior 
half-circles, except the first and last, on 
the abdomen of working-bees, have each 
on their inner surface two cavities, where 
the wax, secreted by the bee from its 
saccharine food is formed in layers, and 
comes out from between the abdominal 
rings. Respiration takes place by means 
of air-tubes which branch out to all parts 
of the body, the bee being exceedingly 
sensitive to an impure atmosphere. Of 
the organs of sense the most important 
are the antennae, deprivation of these re¬ 
sulting in a species of derangement. The 
majority of entomologists regard their 
function as in the first place auditory, but 
they are exceedingly sensitive to tactual 
impressions, and are apparently the prin¬ 
cipal means of mutual communication. 
Bees undergo perfect metamorphosis, the 
young appearing first as larvae, then 
changing to pupae, from which the imagos 
or perfect insects spring. Whether the 
offspring are to be female or male is said 
to be dependent upon the contact or ab¬ 
sence of contact of the egg with the im¬ 
pregnating fluid received from the male 
and stored in a special sac communicating 
with the oviduct, unfertilized eggs pro¬ 
ducing males. The further question 
whether the offspring shall be queens or 
workers is resolved by the influence of 
environment upon function. The enlarge¬ 
ment of a cell to the size of a royal cham¬ 
ber and the nourishment of its inmate 
with a special kind of food appear to be 
sufficient to transform an ordinary work¬ 
ing-bee larva into a fully-developed fe¬ 
male or queen-bee. The season of fecun¬ 


dation occurs about the beginning 
of summer, and the laying begins imme¬ 
diately afterwards, and continues until 
autumn ; in the spring as many as 12,- 
000 eggs may be laid in twenty-four days. 

Those laid at the commence¬ 
ment of fine weather all be¬ 
long to the working sort, 
and hatch at the end of 
four days. The larvae ac¬ 
quire their perfect state in 
about twelve days, and the 
cells are then immediately 
fitted up for the reception 
of new eggs. The eggs for 
producing males are laid two 
months later, and those for 
the females immediately 
afterwards. This succession 
of generations forms s o 
many distinct communities, 
which, when increased be¬ 
yond a certain degree, leave 
the parent hive to found a 
new colony elsewhere. 
Thus three or four swarms 
sometimes leave a hive in a season. A 
good swarm is said to weigh at least 6 
or 8 pounds. Besides the common bee 
(A. mellifica) there are the A. fasciata, 
domesticated in Egypt, the A. ligustica, 
or Ligurian bee of Italy and Greece, etc. 
See Apidry. 

The humble-bees, or bumble-bees, of 
which about forty species are found in 
Europe and over sixty in N. America, 
belong to the genus Bombus , which is 
almost world-wide in its distribution. Of 
these species solitary females which have 
survived the winter commence construct¬ 
ing small nests when the weather begins 
to be warm enough; some of them going 
deep into the earth in dry banks, others 
preferring heaps of stone or gravel, and 
others choosing always some bed of dry 
moss. In the nest the bee collects a 
mass of pollen and in this lays some eggs. 
The cells in these nests are not the work 
of the old bee, but are formed by the 
young insects similarly to the cocoons 
of silk-worms; and when the perfect in¬ 
sect is released from them by the old 
bee, which gnaws off their tops, they are 
employed as honey-cups. The humble- 
bees, however, do not store honey for the 
winter, those which survive till the cold 
weather leaving the nest and penetrating 
the earth, or taking up some other shel¬ 
tered position, and remaining there till 
the spring. The first brood consists of 
workers, and successive broods are pro¬ 
duced during the summer. The experi¬ 
ment of domesticating different kinds of 
wild bees has been tried with no satis¬ 
factory results. Some bees, from their 






Beech 


Bee-eaters 


manner of nesting, are known as ‘ mason 
bees carpenter bees,’ and ‘upholsterer 
bees. Some of these bees (genus Osmia) 
cement particles of sand or gravel to¬ 
gether with a viscid substance in forming 
their nests; others make burrows in wood. 
The leaf-cutter or upholsterer bee (genus 
Megachile) lines its burrow with bits of 
leaf cut out in regular shapes. 

BeCCh. (Fagus), the common name of 
trees of the nat. order Cupu- 
lifera?, well known in various parts of 
the world, including New Zealand and 
Terra del Fuego. The Fagus sylvatica, 
a common European forest-tree, some¬ 
times reaches a height of 120 feet, with 
a diameter of 4 or more, is known by 
its waved and somewhat oval leaves, its 
triangular fruit inclosed by pairs in a 
prickly husk, and by its smooth and 
silvery bark. The wood is hard and 
brittle, and if exposed to the air liable 
soon to decay. It is, however, peculiarly 
useful to cabinet-makers and turners, 
carpenters’ planes, furniture, sabots, etc., 
being made of it; and it is durable under 
water for piles and mill-sluices. The 
fruit or beech-mast, when dried and 
powdered, may be made into a wholesome 
bread; it has also occasionally been 
roasted and used as a substitute for 
coffee, and yields a sweet and palatable 
oil used by the lower classes of Silesia 
instead of butter. Beech-mast is, how¬ 
ever, chiefly used as food for swine, 
poultry, and other animals. The leaves 
of the beech-tree collected in the autumn, 
before they have been injured by the 
frosts, are in some places used to stuff 
mattresses. The North American white 
beech is identical with the European 
species. Red-leaved varieties are common, 
the American E. ferruginea being of this 
color. 

Beecher ( b6 ' ch * r ), Henry Ward, an 
eminent American preacher, 
son of Lyman Beecher (a distinguished 
clergyman 1775-1863). He was born at 
Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24, 1813; 
was minister at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 
in 1837, and of Plymouth Congregational 
Church, Brooklyn, New York, in 1847. 
The latter pulpit he continued to occupy 
till his death in 1887, though in 1882 he 
ceased his formal connection with the 
Congregationalists on the ground of dis¬ 
belief in eternal punishment. From 1861 
to 1863 he was editor of the Independent, 
and for about ten years after 1870, of 
the Christian Union. He was also the 
author.of a considerable number of works, 
of which his Lectures to Young Men 
(1850), Life Thoughts (1S58), Lectures 
on Preaching (1872-74), and the 
weekly issues of his sermons, commanded 


wide circulation. Few contemporary 
preachers appealed to as large and diverse 
a public. He lectured to large audiences 
for many years throughout the United 
States. His brothers Charles, Edward, 



Henry Ward Beecher, 
and Thomas, all distinguished themselves 
as Congregational clergymen. His sister 
Catherine Esther (born 1800; died 1878) 
did much for the education of women, and 
wrote on this subject and on domestic 
economy and kindred subjects. Mrs. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous as a 
novelist, was another sister. 

Beecher-Stowe, Harriet. |^ re e 

Beechey (he'chi), Admiral Freder- 
wir r> l CK William, son of Sir 
William Beechey, the painter, born at 
London in 1796. In 1818 he accompanied 
r ranklin in an expedition to discover 
the northwest passage, and the following 
year took part in a similar enterprise with 
i • be was commissioned, 

with his brother H. W. Beechey to ex¬ 
amine by land the coasts of North Africa 
from Tripoli eastward, an account of 
which appeared in 1828. From 1825 he 
was commander of the Blossom in another 
Arctic expedition, by way of the Pacific 
and Bering Strait, of which a narra¬ 
tive was published in 1831. In 1854 he 
was made rear-admiral of the blue: ho 
died in 1856. 

Beechey, SlR William, a fashionable 
17 „ Portrait-painter, was born in 

1753 ; died in 1839. In 1772 elected Royal 
Academician, and knighted in acknowledg¬ 
ment of his large picture of a cavalry re¬ 
view, including portraits of George III 
the Prince of Wales, etc. The complete 
catalogue of his works includes portraits 
or nearly all the leading personages of 
his day, but artistically he does not be¬ 
long to the first rank of portrait-painters. 
Bee-eaterS, family Of Fissirostral 
. , ’ Passerine birds, distrib¬ 

uted over Africa, India, the Moluccas, 










Beef-eaters 


Beet 


and Australia, chiefly known in Europe 
by the Merops apiaster, or common bee- 
eater, a summer visitant to Russia and 
the Mediterranean borders. It is rare 
in Britain. For the most part they nest 
in colonies, depositing their eggs like the 
sand-martins, at the end of a tunnel 
sometimes 8 or 9 feet long. They are 
frequently killed for their plumage, which 
is brownish red and yellow above, pale- 
blue on the forehead, yellow at the breast, 
and green at the wings, tail, and under 


parts. 

-P 9 +pr <4 (usually but erroneously 
-caLcia consider a corruption of 
Fr. buffetiers), yeomen of the guard of 
the sovereign of Great Britain, stationed 
by the sideboard at great royal dinners, 
and dressed after the fashion of the time 
of Henry VII.—Also a name for certain 
African insessorial birds (genus Bu- 
phdoa) which feed on the larvae embed¬ 
ded in the hides of buffaloes or other large 
animals. 



Beef-tea a nour i s hi n S beverage for 

’ invalids, which may be pre¬ 

pared from lean beef by chopping it small, 
putting it with some cold water into a 
saucepan and letting it simmer for two 
or three hours (or more), also skimming 
off the fat. It is easy of digestion, and 
very nutritious. This should be dis¬ 
tinguished from beef-extracts, sold in cans 
and jars, which are of no real value. 
■Rppf.umorl the timber of some spe- 
wuuu, cies of Australian trees 


belonging to the genus Gasuarina, of a 
reddish color, hard, and close-grained, 
with dark and whitish streaks, chiefly 
used in fine ornamental work. 

■Rap-Tiq wlr a name given to the 
13ee naWK, honey-buzzard ( Pernis 

apivorus), which preys on hymenopterous 
insects. 

Beehive-houses, the archaeological 
’ name of primitive 
dwellings of unknown antiquity found in 
Scotland and Ireland. They are conical 



Beehive-houses at Cahernamacturech, co. Kerry, 
in shape with a hole at the apex. Some 
of them are ascribed to the stone age 


by Lubbock and others, but they are 
more generally assigned to the period 
from the seventh to the twelfth century. 

Beejapoor ( p b 0 e J a ' pBr,) - See Beia ' 

■Rpplyplynh (b e-e Yz e-bub ; Hebrew, 
JDCCizeuuu ‘the god of flies’), the 
supreme god of the Syro-Phcenician peo¬ 
ples, in whose honor the Philistines had a 
temple at Ekron. With his name may be 
compared the epithet ‘ averter of flies’ 
applied to Zeus and later to Hercules. 
The use of Beelzebul in the New Testa¬ 
ment has been the subject of much dis¬ 
cussion, some asserting it to be an oppro¬ 
brious form of Beelzebub, meaning the 
‘ lord of dung,’ others translating it 
‘ lord of the dwelling,’ and others again 
finding in the change from b to l only a 
natural linguistic modification. 

Beer. See Ale and Brewing. 


Beerbhoom. See Birbhum. 


Tippl'd! pIiq (ber-she ba | now Bir~es m 

jseersneDa Seia ^ < the well of the 

oath’), the place where Abraham made 
a covenant with Abimelech, and in com¬ 
mon speech representative of the south¬ 
ernmost limit of Palestine, near which it 
is situated. It is now a mere heap of 
ruins near two large and five smaller 
wells, though it was a place of some 
importance down to the period of the 
Gmsadps. 


Wax a so ^ fatty substance 
aA ’ secreted by bees, and con¬ 
taining in its purified state three chemi¬ 
cal principles—myricin, cerin, and cero- 
lein. It is not collected from plants, 
but elaborated from saccharine food in 
the body of the bee. (See Bee.) It is 
used for the manufacture of candles, for 
modeling, and in many minor processes. 
See Wax. 

Beet (^ e ^ a )» a genus of plants, nat. 

order Chenopodiaceae, d i s t i n- 
guished by its fruit being enclosed in a 
tough woody or spongy five-lobed enlarged 
calyx. Two species only are known in 
general cultivation, namely, the sea-beet 
(B. maritima) and the garden beet 
(B. vulgaris). The former is a tough- 
rooted perennial, common on many parts 
of the British coast and sometimes culti¬ 
vated for its leaves, which are an excel¬ 
lent substitute for spinach. Of the garden 
beet, which differs from the last in being 
of only biennial duration and in forming a 
tender fleshy root, two principal forms are 
known to cultivators, the chard beet and 
the common beet. In the chard beet the 
roots are small, white, and rather tough, 
and the leaves are furnished with a broad, 
fleshy midrib {chard), employed as a 






Beet-beetle 


Beg 


vegetable by the French, who dress the 
ribs like sea-kale under the name of 
poiree. Some writers regard this as a 
peculiar species, and call it Beta cicla or 
hortensis. The common beet includes all 
the fleshy-rooted varieties, such as red 
beet (with a fleshy large carrot-shaped 
root), yellow beet, sugar-beet, mangel- 
wurzel, etc. For garden purposes the best 
is the red beet of Castelnaudary, so 
called from a town in the s. w. of France. 
The beet requires a rich light soil, and 
being a native of the Mediterranean region 
is impatient of severe cold, requiring to 
be taken up in the beginning of winter 
and packed in dry sand, or in pits like 
potatoes, the succulent leaves .having been 
first removed. Red beet is principally 
used at table, but if eaten in great 
quantities is said to be injurious. The 
beet may be taken out of the ground for 
use about the end of August, but it does 
not attain its full size and perfection till 
the month of October. A good beer may 
be brewed from the beet, and it yields a 
spirit of good quality. From the white 
beet the French, during the wars under 
Napoleon I, succeeded in preparing sugar, 
that article, as British colonial produce, 
having been prohibited in France. Since 
that time, with the increase of chemical 
and technical knowledge, the making of 
beet-sugar has became an important in¬ 
dustry in France, Germany, Austria, 
Russia, Belgium, and Holland, and has of 
late years been widely cultivated in the 
United States. The culture of the beet¬ 
root for sugar has been so developed 
that the production now equals and in 
some years surpasses that of cane sugar. 

Beet-beetle an £. s - 

atrata), the name of two 
beetles the larva of which, a little black 
maggot, injures beet and mangel-wurzel 
by feeding on the leaves. 

T3ppf.fi v (Anthomyia Betce), a fly 
resembling the common fly 
but of smaller size, which deposits its eggs 
in the leaves of mangel-wurzels and other 
beets. The larvae, feeding on the tissues, 
raise bullae, or blisters, which, when 
numerous, injure the plant. 

'Rppflinvpn (ba'to-vn), Ludwig van, 
Jjcctiiuvcit a great German musical 

composer, born at Bonn, Prussia, in 1770, 
studied under his father (a tenor singer), 
Pfeiffer, Van der Eden, and Neefe; began 
to publish in 1783; became assistant 
court organist in 1785; and was sent by 
the Elector of Cologne to Vienna in 1792, 
where he was the pupil of Haydn and 
Albrechtsberger, and acquired a high repu¬ 
tation for pianoforte extemporization be¬ 
fore the merit of his written compositions 
was fully understood. In or near Vienna 


almost all his subsequent life was spent, 
his artistic tour in North Germany in 
1796 being the most important break. He 
died March 27, 1827. His later life was 
rendered somewhat morbid by his deaf¬ 
ness, of which the first signs appeared in 
1797. He had the head of Jove on the 
body of Bacchus, and there was in him 
a strong dash of what in a lesser man 
would be termed insanity, with an alter¬ 
nation between the highest elevation of 
genius and the conduct of a fool or buf¬ 
foon. His best works were published 
after 1800, two periods being observable: 
the first from 1800 to 1814, comprising 
Symphonies 2-8; the opera Fidelio 
(originally Leonore) , the music to 
Goethe’s Egmont, and the overtures to 
Prometheus , Coriolanus, King Stephen 
and Fidelio; the second (in which the 
poetic school of musicians find the germs 
of the subsequent development through 
Schumann, Wagner, and Liszt) compris¬ 
ing the Ninth Symphony, the Missa 
Solemnis, and the Sonatas Op. 101, 102, 
106, 109, 110, and 111. 

Beetle (be'tl), a name often* used as 
c synonymous with the term 
Coleoptera, but restricted by others to in¬ 
clude all those insects that have their 
wings protected by hard cases or sheaths, 
called elytra. Beetles vary in size from 
a mere point to the bulk of a man’s fist, 
the largest, the elephant beetle of S. 
America, being 4 inches long. The so- 
called ‘ black beetles ’ of kitchens and 
cellars are not properly beetles at all, 
but cockroaches, and of the order Orthop- 
tera. 


Beetle-stone, 


a nodule of coprolitic 
iron-stone, so named 


from the resemblance of the inclosed 
coprolite to the body and limb of a beetle. 


Beet-root. See Beet. 


r na (Ital., corrupted from Epi- 
phania, ‘ Epiphany ’), in 
Italy, a legendary housewife who, being 
too busy to see the wise men of the East 
on their way to the infant Christ, has 
been looking out for them ever since, be¬ 
ing ignorant that they returned home 
another way. She is particularly con¬ 
cerned with children, and on Twelfth- 
night stockings are hung out to receive 
her gifts. The name is also given to a 
ragged doll which appears in the streets 
and shops on the eve and day of Epiph¬ 
any. 

or Bey (‘prince’ or ‘lord’), in 
9 Turkey, a governor; or more 
particularly the governor of a sanjak. 
Sometimes given loosely to superior offi¬ 
cers and persons of rank. It ranks be¬ 
tween effendi and pasha. 






Bega 


Beheading 


BeP*a ( ba 'ga), Cornelius, a Dutch 
o painter and engraver,' born at 
Harlem in 1620, one of the ablest pupils 
of Adrian von Ostade. His best paintings 
are in the Berlin Museum, and the Pina- 
kothek at Munich. He died of the plague 
in 1664. 

Beg*aS (ba'gas), Karl, a German his- 
° torical and portrait painter, 
born 1794, died 1854. lie at first followed 
the German pre-Raphaelites in style, but 
afterwards treated history and genre in 
the Diisseldorf romantic school. He was 
long court painter and professor at Berlin 
Academy, and painted the portraits of 
many eminent personages. In Biblical 
subjects he was highly successful, as in 
the Exposing of Moses, Christ prophesy¬ 
ing the Fall of Jerusalem , etc. 

Begass. See Bagasse. 

Beggar-my-neighbor, ® ar ^ me us ^ 

ally played by two persons, who share 
the pack, and, laying their shares face 
downwards, turn up a card alternately 
until an honor appears. The honor has 
to be paid for by the less fortunate player 
at the rate of four cards for an ace, three 
for a king, two for a queen, and one for 
a knave; but if in the course of payment 
another honor should be turned up the 
late creditor becomes himself a debtor 
to the amount of its value. 

Beggars. See Vagrants. 

"Rpcrhnrrta (beg'ardz), or Beguards, 
ucgiicuua members of a religious 

body which arose in Flanders in the 
thirteenth century. They disclaimed the 
authority of princes, and refused to sub¬ 
mit unconditionally to the rules of any 
order, but bound themselves to a life of 
extreme sanctity without necessarily quit¬ 
ting their secular vocations. They were 
persecuted in the latter half of the four¬ 
teenth century as heretics, and either 
dispersed or distributed over the Do¬ 
minican and Franciscan orders. 
Begharmi (be-gdr'mi). See Ba- 

° girmi. 

Bpp*'lprhpp* (‘ prince of princes’), the 
.ucg ici ucg tide among the Turks of 

a governor who has under him several 
begs, agas, etc. 

Besronia (be-go'ni-a), an extensive 
b genus of succulent-stemmed 

herbaceous plants, order Begoniacese, with 
fleshy oblique leaves of various colors, 
and showy unisexual flowers, the whole 
perianth colored. They readily hybridize, 
and many fine varieties have been raised 
from the tuberous-rooted kinds. From 
the shape of their leaves they have been 
called elephant's ear. Almost all the 


Beguines 


plants of the order are tropical, and they 
have mostly pink or red flowers. 

Beguards. See Beghards. 

(be-genz'), an order of fe¬ 
males, who, without taking 
the monastic vows, formed societies for 
devotion and charity, living in houses 
called beguinages. The order originated 
towards the end of the eleventh century, 
in Germany and the Netherlands, and was 
very flourishing in the twelfth and thir¬ 
teenth centuries. They still exist in 
Holland, Belgium, and Germany, though 
the modern beguinage is an eleemosynary 
institution for lodging pnmarried women 
rather than of the old type. 

"Rp'o’nm in the East Indies, a princess 
jjc & UI1A > or lady of high rank. 
Behaim (ba'him), or Behem, Mar¬ 
tin, a mathematician and 
astronomer, born at Niirnberg about 1430. 
He went from Antwerp to Lisbon with 
a high reputation in 1480, sailed in the 
fleet of Diego Cam on a voyage of dis¬ 
covery (1484-86), and explored the 
islands on the coast of Africa as far as 
the Congo. He colonized the island of 
Fayal, where he remained for several 
years, and assisted in the discovery of the 
other Azores; was afterwards knighted, 
and returned to his native country, where, 
in 1492, he constructed a terrestrial globe, 
still preserved. He died at Lisbon in 
1506. 

Beham (ba'ham), the name of two 
engravers and painters.—1. 
Barthel, pupil of Diirer, born at Ntirn- 
berg 1498, died at Rome 1540. A picture 
by him in the Pinakothek at Munich 
ranks among the masterpieces of the old 
German school.—2. Hans Sebald, born 
at Niirnberg in 1500; brother of Barthel. 
He was one of Diirer’s ablest pupils, but 
his subjects were often gross. His later 
career was that of a tavern and brothel 
keeper, and he died or was put to death 
about 1550. 

Bohar (be-har'),aprov. of Hindustan, 
in Bengal, area 44,139 sq. 
miles. It is generally flat, and is divided 
into almost equal parts by the Ganges, 
the chief tributaries of which in the prov. 
are the Gogra, Gandak, Kusi, Mahananda, 
and Soane. There is an extensive canal 
and irrigation system. Opium and indigo 
are largely produced. It is the most 
densely peopled prov. of India; pop. 
24,185,000. Patna is the capital.—The 
town of Behar, in the Patna district, con¬ 
tains some ancient mosques and the ruins 
of an old fort; it is a place of large trade. 
Pop. 45,063. 

Beheading’ (be-hed'ing). See Capital 
° Punishment. 



Behemoth 


Beke 


"RpTi^mnfh (be'he-moth), the animal 

-Deneiiiutii described in Job> xb The 

description is most applicable to the 
hippopotamus, and the word seems to be 
of Egyptian origin and to signify ‘ water- 
ox ’; but it has been variously asserted 
to be the ox, the elephant, the crocodile, 
etc. 

Be'hen, Oil of. Same as Oil of Ben. 


i titi (ba-his-ton'), or Bis^utun, 
a mountain near a village 
of the same name in Persian Kurdistan, 
celebrated for the sculptures and cune¬ 
iform inscriptions cut upon one of its 
sides—a rock rising almost perpendicu¬ 
larly to the height of 1700 feet. These 
works, which begin about 300 feet from 
the ground, were executed by the orders 
of Darius I, King of Persia, and set forth 
his genealogy and victories. To receive 
the inscriptions the rock was carefully 
polished and coated with a hard siliceous 
varnish. Their probable date is about 
515 b.c. They were first copied and de¬ 
ciphered by Rawlinson. 

"Rplrn (ben), Aphra, English writer of 
-£>CI plays and novels, born 1640; 
maiden name Johnson. As a child she 
went out to Surinam, where she became 
acquainted with the slave Oroonoko, 
■whom she made the subject of a novel. 
On her return to England she married 
Mr. Behn, a London merchant of Dutch 
extraction, but was probably a widow 
when sent by Charles II to serve as a spy 
at Antwerp during the Dutch war. She 
afterwards became fashionable among the 
men of wit and pleasure of the time as a 
prolific writer of plays, poems, and stories, 
now more notorious for their indecency 
than their ability. She died in 1689, and 
was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Behring* or Bering (ba'ring), Vitus, 
.Licming, a f amous navigator, born in 

1680 at Horsens, Jutland. The courage 
displayed by him as captain in the navy 
of Peter the Great during the Swedish 
wars led to his being chosen to command 
a voyage of discovery in the Sea of 
Kamtchatka. In 1728 and subsequently 
he examined the coasts of Kamtchatka, 
Okhotsk, and the north of Siberia, ascer¬ 
taining the relation between the north¬ 
eastern Asiatic and northwestern Amer¬ 
ican coasts. Returning from America in 
1741, he was wrecked upon the desert 
island of Awatska (Behring’s Island), 
and died there. 

Behring 1 , or Bering, Strait, 


Sea, and Island. 


The strait is 
the channel sep¬ 
arating the continents of Asia and Amer¬ 
ica, and connecting the North Pacific with 


the Arctic Ocean ; breadth at the narrow¬ 
est part, between Cape Prince of Wales 
and East Cape, about 36 miles; depth in 
the middle from 29 to 30 fathoms. It is 
frozen in winter, and seldom free from 
fog or haze. Though named after Vitus 
Behring, it was only fully explored by 
Cook in 1778.— Behring Sea, sometimes 
called the Sea of Kamtchatka, is that 
portion of the North Pacific Ocean lying 
between the Aleutian Islands and Behr¬ 
ing Strait.— Behring Island, the most 
westerly of the Aleutian chain, off the 
east coast of Kamtchatka. It is uninhab¬ 
ited, and is without wood. 

Beira (ba'i-ra) a division and former 
c province of Portugal, between 

Spain and the Atlantic, and bounded by 
the Douro on the N. and by the Tagus 
and Estremadura on the s. Surface 
mountainous, with the highest level in 
Portugal (6540 feet). Area, 9244 square 
miles. Chief town, Coimbra. The town 
of Beira is a seaport of Portuguese East 
Africa, with a good harbor and exports 
of gold, wax and rubber. 

Beirut. See Bey rout. 


Beit-el-Fagih 


(bat-el-fa'ke), a town 
of Yemen, Arabia, a 
principal market for Mocha coffee. Pop. 
8000. 


Beia (ba'zha), a town of Portugal, 
J province of Algarve, with an old 
cathedral and some Roman remains. 
Pop. 8900. 

Beifluoor (be-ja-por') a ruined city 
-DCjdpuui of Hindustan> in the Bom . 

bay presidency, near the borders of the 
Nizam’s dominions, on an affluent of the 
Krishna. It was one of the largest cities 
in India until its capture by Aurungzebe 
in 1686. The ruins, of which some are 
in the richest style of oriental art, are 
chiefly Mohammedan, the principal being 
Mahomet Shah’s tomb, with a dome visible 
for 14 miles, and a Hindu temple in the 
earliest Brahmanical style. Pop. about 
17,000. 

BeiUr (ba-har'), a fortified town of 
J Spain, prov. Salamanca, with 
woolen manufactures. Pop. 9488. 

TJpLp (bek), Charles Tilstone, an 
English traveler, born in 1800. 
He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, and hav¬ 
ing devoted much attention to ancient 
history and kindred subjects he published 
in 1834 Origines Biblicce, researches in 
primitive history. Supported by private 
individuals, he joined Major Harris in 
the exploration of Abyssinia, of which 
he published an account in 1846. Two 
works on the Nile followed in 1847 and 
1849, with a Memoir in defense of P&res 
Paez and Lobo, issued in Paris, 1848. 



Bekes 


Belfast 


He also made journeys to Harran in 
1861, to Abyssinia in 1865, and to the 
head of the Red Sea in 1874, in which 
year he died. 

"RpVpq (ba'kash), a town of Hungary, 
jjcis.cs at the j unc ti on 0 f Black 

and White Korbs, with a trade in flax, 
cattle, corn, wine, etc. Pop. 25,485. 

Bekker ( bek,er )> Immanuel, a Ger- 
cis.is.ci man c ] ass i ca ] sc holar, born 

in 1785; died in 1871. His critical edi¬ 
tions of the texts of the most important 
Greek and Latin authors, based on an 
examination and comparison of MSS., 
are very valuable, embracing Plato, 
Aristotle, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Livy, 
and Tacitus. He also published contribu¬ 
tions to the philology of the Romance 
tongues. 

•gpl the chief deity of the ancient 
> Babylonians. See Babylon. 

T>g] also Belgar, the Hindu name of 
5 the JEgle marmelos, or Bengal 
quince. The fruit, which is not unlike 
an orange, is slightly aperient; a per¬ 
fume and yellow dye are obtained from 
the rind, and a cement from the mucus 
of the seed. 

Bela, (be'la), the name of four kings 
of Hungary belonging to the Ar- 
pad dynasty.— Bela I, son of Ladislaf, 
competed for the crown with his brother 
Andrew, whom he defeated, killed, and 
succeeded in 1061. He died in 1063, 
after introducing many reforms.— Bela 

II, the Blind, mounted the throne in 
1131, and after ruling under the evil 
guidance of his queen, Helena, died from 
the effects of his vices in 1141.— Bela 

III, crowned 1174, corrected abuses, re¬ 
pelled the Bohemians, Poles, Austrians, 
and Venetians, and died in 1196.— Bela 

IV, succeeded his father Andrew II in 
1235; was shortly after defeated by the 
Tartars and detained prisoner for some 
time in Austria, where he had sought 
refuge. In 1244 he regained his throne, 
with the aid of the knights of Rhodes, 
and defeated the Austrians, but was in 
turn beaten by the Bohemians. Died 
in 1270. 

Bel and the Dragon, f he \° k ocr °! 

pha, forming a sort of addition to the 
book of Daniel. In it Daniel is shown as 
exposing the imposture of the priests of 
Bel and killing a sacred dragon. 
"RplLpic (bel'bas), a town of Lower 
JJClUGlb Egypt> 28 miles N. n. e. of 

Cairo, on the road to Syria. Near it 
are traces of the ancient canal that 
joined the Nile to the Red Sea. Pop. 
11,267. 

■Rplpm (ba-len'), a town of Portugal, 
■ DCAC on the right bank of the 


Tagus, now the fashionable suburb of 
Lisbon. Has an old monastery which 
contains the remains of Vasco da Gama, 
Camoens, and a number of the Portu¬ 
guese kings. 

Hplprrmite (bel'em-nlt), * name for 
ueiemniie straight> solidr tapering, 

dart-shaped fossils, popularly known as 



Belemnites. 


1. Belemnoteuthis antiquus—ventral side. 

2. Belemnites Owenii (restored), a, Guard, 
c, Phragmacone. d, Muscular tissue of mantle. 
f, Infundibulum, i, Uncinated arms, k, Ten- 
tacula. n, Ink-bag. 

3. Belemnite.—British Museum. 


arrow-heads, thunderbolts, finger-stones, 
etc. 

"Rplfnct (bel-fast'), a seaport of 
■uciiabi Ireland (in 18g8 declared a 

city), the principal town of Ulster, and 
county town of Antrim, built on low 
alluvial land on the left bank of the 
Lagan, at the head of Belfast Lough. 
Ballymacarret, in County Down, on the 
right bank of the Lagan, is a suburb. 
The streets are spacious and regular, the 
houses mostly of brick. The chief Epis¬ 
copal churches are St. Ann’s, Trinity, 
and St. George’s, but the most magnifi¬ 
cent edifice is the Roman Catholic St. 
Peter’s. The population is largely 
Protestant, and there are Methodist 
and Presbyterian theological seminaries. 
The chief educational institution is the 
Queen’s College, with about twenty pro¬ 
fessors. Chief public buildings: the 
town-hall; the Commercial Buildings 
and Exchange; the White and Brown 
Linen Halls; the range of buildings 
for the customs, inland revenue, and 
post-office; the Ulster Hall; the Albert 
memorial clock-tower, 143 feet high; etc. 
In the suburbs are two extensive public 
parks and a botanic garden of 17 acres. 







Belfast 


Belgium 


Belfast Lough is about 15 miles long, and 
6 miles broad at the entrance, gradually 
narrowing as it approaches the town. 
The harbor and dock accommodation is 
now extensive, new docks having been 
recently added. Belfast is the center of 
the Irish linen trade, and has the ma¬ 
jority of spinning-mills and power-loom 
factories in Ireland. Previous to about 
1830 the cotton manufacture was the 
leading industry of Belfast, but nearly 
all the mills have been converted to flax¬ 
spinning. The iron shipbuilding trade 
is also of importance, and there are 
breweries, distilleries, flour-mills, oil- 
mills, foundries, print-works, tan-yards, 
chemical works, ropeworks, etc. The com¬ 
merce is large. An extensive direct trade 
is carried on with British North America, 
the Mediterranean, France, Belgium, Hol¬ 
land, and the Baltic, besides the regular 
traffic with the principal ports of the 
British islands. Belfast is comparatively 
a modern town, its prosperity dating 
from the introduction of the cotton trade 
in 1777. It has suffered severely at 
various times from faction-fights between 
Catholics and Protestants, the more 
serious having been in the years 1864, 
1872, and 1886. Belfast is the largest 
city in Ireland, its population in 1910 
being 386,576. 

(bel'fast), a city and seaport 
■Delictsl of Maine on Penobscot Bay, 
30 miles from the ocean, with manufac¬ 
tures of iron, boots and shoes. It has a 
fine harbor and a good shipbuilding trade. 
Pop. 4618. 

"Rplfnrf or B£fort (ba-for), a small 
uciiui vj f or tifi e( j to Wn an d territory of 

France, in the former dep. Haut Rhin, 
on the SavoureUse, well built, with an 
ancient castle and a fine parish church. 
In the Franco-German war it capitulated 
to the Germans only after an investment 
of more than three months’ duration 
(1870-71). It has since been greatly 
strengthened. Belfort, with the district 
immediately surrounding it, is the only 
part of the department of Haut Rhin 
which remained to France on the cession 
of Alsace to Germany. Pop. of territory, 
95,421, of which 27,805 belong to the 


town. 

■Rpl'frv a bell-tower or bell-turret. A 
AA «/ > bell-tower may be attached to 
another building, or may stand apart; a 
bell-turret usually rises above the roof 
of a building, and is often placed above 
the top of the western gable of a church. 
The part of a tower containing a bell or 
bells is also called a belfry. 

■Rpljyrp (bel'je), a collection of Ger- 
■Dcigcc man an( j Q e iti c tribes who an¬ 
ciently inhabited the country extending 


between the Marne and Seine and the 
lower Rhine, and bounded northwest by 
the sea. Caesar, on his invasion of Brit¬ 
ain, found them established also in Kent 
and Sussex. 


Belp*aum (bei-ga'um), a i 
•DClgdUlli fortress in Hin 


tow r n and 
d u s t a n, 

Bombay Presidency, district of Belgaum, 
on a plain 2500 feet above the sea-level. 
In 1818 the fort and tow'n were taken 
by the British, and from its healthy 
situation it was selected as a permanent 
military station. Pop. 26,200. It is the 
capital of a district of the same name, 
4657 sq. miles in area. 

■DplodpQ (bel'ji-ka), a part of ancient 
o Gaul, originally the land of 
the Bellovaci and Atrebates, who lived 
in the neighborhood of Amiens, and per¬ 
haps of Senlis. 

"Rplp’inifmn (bel-jo-yo'so), a towrn of 
■DCigiuju&u Italy> provillce of p av i a , 

with an old castle, in w r hich Francis I 
was lodged after the battle of Pavia in 
1525. Pop. about 4000. 

■RAla*imncn Christina, Princess of, 

■DCAglUJU&U, an Italian lady who took 

a distinguished part in the revolutionary 
movement of 1830, and again in 1848, 
when she raised a volunteer corps at her 
own expense. After an exile of some 
years she returned under the amnesty of 
1856, regained her property, and sup¬ 
ported the policy of Cavour. Died 1871, 
aged sixty-three. 


"Rolennm (bel'ji-um ; French, Belgique; 

o German, Belgien), an Euro¬ 

pean kingdom, bounded by Holland, the 
North Sea or German Ocean, France, 
and Germany; greatest length, 165 miles; 
greatest breadth, 120 miles; area, 11,366 
square miles. For administrative pur¬ 
poses it is divided into nine provinces— 
Antwerp, Brabant, East Flanders, West 
Flanders Hainaut, Li&ge, Limburg, Lux¬ 
emburg, and Namur. The total pop. last 
census (1910) 7,423,784. Brabant, the 
metropolitan province, occupies the cen¬ 
ter. The capital is Brussels; other chief 
towns are Antwerp, Ghent, and Liege. 
The country may be regarded roughly as 
an inclined plain, falling away in height 
from the southern district of the low 
chain of the Ardennes until in the N. and 
w. it becomes only a few feet above sea- 
level. The surface rocks in the south 
consist of slate, old red sandstone, and 
mountain limestone; towards the n. w\ a 
rich coal and iron field stretches across 
the provinces of Hainaut and Li&ge, 
skirting those of Namur and Luxemburg. 
North and west of this coal-field a more 
recent formation is found, covered in¬ 
land by deep beds of clay and on the 
coast by sand-dunes. The chief rivers 



Belgium 


Belgium 


are the Scheldt or Schelde and Meuse or 
Maas, which cross the country in a 
northeasterly direction; other navigable 
streams are the Dender, Dyle, Lys, 
Ourthe, Rupel, and Sambre. There are 
also a number of canals. The climate 
bears a considerable resemblance to that 
of the same latitudes in England; 
healthiest in Luxemburg and Namur, un- 
healthiest in the fens of Flanders and 
Antwerp. About one-sixth of the whole 
surface of the kingdom is occupied 
by wood, Luxemburg and Namur being 
very densely wooded. These woods, the 
remains of the ancient forest of Ar¬ 
dennes, consist of hard wood, principally 
oak, and furnish valuable timber, besides 
many tons of bark both for the home- 
tanneries and for exportation, and large 
quantities of charcoal. South Brabant 
also possesses several fine forests, among 
others that of Soignies; but in the other 
provinces the timber—mostly varieties 
of poplar—is grown in small copses and 
hedgerows. 

About four-fifths of the whole king¬ 
dom is under cultivation, and nearly 
eleven-twelfths of it profitably occupied, 
leaving only about one-twelftli waste. In 
the high lands traversed by the Ardennes 
the climate is ungenial, and the soil shal¬ 
low and stony. On the natural pastures 
here, however, much stock is reared, and 
a hardy breed of horses, while large herds 
of swine feed in the forests. Where the 
soil is arable it is turned to account, 
and the vine has been grown with fail- 
success in some districts. In the opposite 
extremity of Belgium is an extensive 
tract known as the Campine, composed 
for the most part of barren sand, with 
here and there a patch of more prom¬ 
ising appearance. Agricultural colonies, 
partly free and partly compulsory, have 
been planted in different parts of this 
district with considerable success, some 
of the finest cattle and much excellent 
dairy produce coming from it. But a 
portion of it remains untouched. With 
exception of the two districts now de¬ 
scribed, there is no part of Belgium in 
which agriculture does not flourish ; but 
it reaches its highest in E. and W. 
Flanders. Flemish husbandry partakes 
more of the nature of garden than of 
field culture, being very largely spade¬ 
farming. The chief corn crops are wheat, 
rye, and oats (600,000 to 700,000 acres 
each) ; but they do not suffice for the 
wants of the country. The chief green 
crops are potatoes, beet (partly for 
sugar), and flax, the last a most valuable 
crop in the Flemish rotation. The cattle 
are good and numerous. The horses of 
Flanders are admirably adapted for 


draught, and an infusion of their blood 
has contributed not a little to form the 
magnificent teams of the London dray¬ 
men. The minerals of Belgium are 
highly valuable. They are almost en¬ 
tirely confined to the four provinces of 
Hainaut, Li&ge, Namur, and Luxemburg, 
and consist of iron and coal, lead, man¬ 
ganese, and zinc, the first two minerals 
being far the most important. The iron¬ 
working district lies between the Sambre 
and the Meuse and also in the province 
of Liege. At present the largest quantity 
of ore is raised in that of Namur. The 
coal-field has an area of above 500 square 
miles. The quantity of coal raised an¬ 
nually is about 25,000,000 tons. The ex¬ 
port of this, chiefly to France, forming 
one of the largest and most valuable of 
all the Belgian exports. Belgium is also 
abundantly supplied with building-stone, 
pavement limestone, roofing-slate, and 
marble. 

The industrial products of Belgium are 
very numerous, and are mostly of high 
character. The chief are those connected 
with linen, wool, cotton, metal, and 
leather goods. In respect of manufactures, 
the fine linens of Flanders and lace of 
South Brabant are of European reputa¬ 
tion. Scarcely less celebrated are the 
carpets and porcelain of Tournay, the 
cloth of Verviers, the extensive foundries, 
machine-works, and other iron establish¬ 
ments of Li&ge. The carpets to which 
Brussels gives its name are now made 
chiefly in other countries. The commerce 
of Belgium is large and increasing. 
Apart from the value of her own products, 
she is admirably situated for the transit 
trade of Central Europe, to which her 
fine harbor of Antwerp and excellent 
railway and canal system minister. The 
exports of Belgian produce and manufac¬ 
tures, which in 1840 were valued at 
$28,000,000, have risen to $550,000,000. 
The imports for home consumption 
amount to some $700,000,000. The ar¬ 
ticles of import are chiefly cereals, raw 
cotton, wool, and colonial produce; 
those of export principally coal and flax, 
tissues of flax, cotton and wool, ma¬ 
chinery, etc. More than a third of the 
exports of Belgian produce and manufac¬ 
tures are sent to France. The external 
trade is chiefly carried on by means of 
foreign (British) vessels. 

The Belgian population is the densest 
of any European state (over GOO per 
square mile), and is composed of two 
distinct races—Flemish, who are of Ger¬ 
man, and Walloons, who are of French 
extraction. The former, by far the more 
numerous, have their principal locality in 
Flanders; but also prevail throughout 



Belgium 


Belgium 


Antwerp, Limburg, and part of South 
Brabant. The latter are found chiefly 
in llainaut, Liege, Namur, and part of 
Luxemburg. The Flemings speak a dia¬ 
lect of German, and the Walloons a cor¬ 
ruption of French, with a considerable 
infusion of words and phrases from 
Spanish and other languages. French is 
the official and literary language, though 
Flemish is also successfully employed in 
literature. Almost the entire population 
is Roman Catholic, and there are over 
1500 convents, with nearly 25,000 in¬ 
mates. Protestantism is fully tolerated, 
and even salaried by the state, but can¬ 
not count a large number of adherents. 
Improved means of education are now at 
the disposal of the people, every com¬ 
mune being bound to maintain at least 
one school for elementary education, the 
government paying one-sixth, the prov¬ 
ince one-sixth, and the commune the re¬ 
mainder of the expenditure. In all the 
large towns colleges ( athenees ) have 
been established ; while a complete course 
for the learned professions is provided by 
four universities, two of them, at Ghent 
and LiSge, established and supported by 
the state; one at Brussels, the Free Uni¬ 
versity, founded by voluntary associa¬ 
tion ; and one at Louvain, the Catholic 
University, founded by the clergy. Al¬ 
though the condition of the population is, 
for the most part, one of comfort, yet in 
Flanders and South Brabant, where it is 
800 per square mile, a fourth of the 
people is dependent on total or occasional 
relief, and pauper riots have repeatedly 
occurred. 

By the Belgian constitution the execu¬ 
tive power is vested in a hereditary king; 
the legislative, in the king and two cham¬ 
bers—the senate and the chamber of rep¬ 
resentatives—both elected by a qualified 
universal suffrage, the former for eight 
years, and the latter for four, but one- 
half of the former renewable every four 
years, and one-half of the latter every 
two years. Each of the provinces is ad¬ 
ministered by a governor and is sub¬ 
divided into arrondissements administra¬ 
tes and arrondissements judiciaries; sub¬ 
divided again, respectively, into cantons 
de milice and cantons de justice de paix. 
Each canton is composed of several com¬ 
munes, of which the sum total is 2514. 
The army is formed by conscription, to 
which every able man who has completed 
his nineteenth year is liable, and also by 
voluntary enlistment. The peace strength 
(1910) is 40,000; war strength 85,000; 
adding to this the militia and the un¬ 
organized available force, the total 
reaches 350,000. The navy is confined 
to a few steamers and a small flotilla 
29—1 


of gunboats. The estimated revenue for 
1900, chiefly from railways, direct taxa¬ 
tion, and transport dues, was about 
$10S,000,000, the estimated expenditure 
$110,000,000. Nearly one-fourth of the 
expenditure is in payment of interest of 
the national debt, the sum total of which 
is about $620,000,000. The coins, 
weights, and measures are the same, both 
in name and value, as those of France. 

History. —The territory now known 
as Belgium originally formed only a sec¬ 
tion of that knowh to Caesar as the 
territory of the Belgae, extending from 
the right bank of the Seine to the left 
bank of the Rhine, and to the ocean. 
This district continued under Roman 
sway till the decline of the empire; sub¬ 
sequently formed part of the kingdom of 
Clovis ; and then of that of Charlemagne, 
whose ancestors belonged to Landen and 
Herstal on the confines of the Ardennes. 
After the breaking up of the empire of 
Charlemagne Belgium formed part of the 
kingdom of Lotharingia under Charle¬ 
magne’s grandson, Lothaire; Artois and 
Flanders, however, belonging to France 
by the treaty of Verdun. 

For more than a century this kingdom 
was contended for by the kings of France 
and the emperors of Germany. In 953 it 
was conferred by the Emperor Otto upon 
Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, who as¬ 
sumed the title of archduke, and divided 
it into two duchies: Upper and Lower 
Lorraine. In the frequent struggles 
which took place during the eleventh 
century Luxemburg, Namur, Hainaut, 
and Li£ge usually sided with France, 
while Brabant, Holland, and Flanders 
commonly took the side of Germany. 
The contest between the civic and in¬ 
dustrial organizations and feudalism, 
which went on through the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries, and in which 
Flanders bore a leading part, was tem¬ 
porarily closed by the defeat of the Ghen- 
tese under Van Artevelde in 1382. In 
1384 Flanders and Artois fell to the 
house of Burgundy, which in less than a 
century acquired the whole of the Nether¬ 
lands. The death of Charles the Bold 
at Nancy, in his attempt to raise the 
duchy into a kingdom (1477), was fol¬ 
lowed by the succession and marriage of 
his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, by 
which the Netherlands became an Aus¬ 
trian possession. With the accession, 
however, of the Austrian house of Ilaps- 
burg to the Spanish throne, the Nether¬ 
lands, after a brief period of prosperity 
attended by the spread of the reformed 
religion, became the scene of increasingly 
severe persecution under Charles V and 
Philip II of Spain. Driven to rebellion, 



Belgium 


Belial 


the seven northern states, under William 
of Orange, the Silent, succeeded in es¬ 
tablishing their independence, but the 
southern portion, or Belgium, continued 
under the Spanish yoke. 

From 1598 to 1621 the Spanish 
Netherlands were transferred as an inde¬ 
pendent kingdom to the Austrian branch 
of the family by the marriage of Isabella, 
daughter of Philip II, with the Arch¬ 
duke Albert of Austria. He died child¬ 
less, however, and they reverted to Spain. 
After being twice conquered by Louis 
XIV, conquered again by Marlborough, 
coveted by all the powers, deprived of 
territory on the one side by Holland and 
on the other by France, the Southern 
Netherlands were at length in 1714, by 
the peace of Utrecht, again placed under 
the dominion of Austria, with the name 
of the Austrian Netherlands. During 
the Austrian war of succession the 
French under Saxe conquered nearly the 
whole country, but restored it in 1748 
by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The 
Seven Years’ War (1756-63) did not af¬ 
fect Belgium, and in that period, and 
during the peace which followed, she re¬ 
gained much of her prosperity under 
Maria Theresa and Charles of Lorraine. 
On the succession of Jokeph II, the 
‘ philosophic emperor,’ a serious insur¬ 
rection occurred, the Austrian army be¬ 
ing defeated at Turnhout, and the prov¬ 
inces forming themselves into an inde¬ 
pendent state as united Belgium (1790). 
They had scarcely been subdued again by 
Austria before they were conquered by 
the revolutionary armies of France, and 
the country divided into French depart¬ 
ments, the Austrian rule being practi¬ 
cally closed by the battle of Fleurus 
(1794), and the French possession con¬ 
firmed by the treaties of Campo Formio 
(1797) and Luneville (1801). 

In 1815 Belgium was united by the 
Congress of Vienna to Holland, both 
countries together forming one state, the 
Kingdom of the Netherlands. This union 
lasted till 1830, when a revolt broke out 
among the Belgians, and soon attained 
such dimensions that the Dutch troops 
were unable to repress it. A convention 
of the great powers assembled in Lon¬ 
don, favored the separation of the two 
countries, and drew up a treaty to regu¬ 
late it; the National Congress of Bel¬ 
gium offering the crown, on the recom¬ 
mendation of England, to Leopold, prince 
of Saxe-Coburg, who acceded to it under 
the title of Leopold I, on July 21, 1831. 
In November of the same year the five 
powers guaranteed the crown to him by 
the treaty of London, and the remaining 
difficulties with Holland were settled in 


1839, when the Dutch claims to territory 
in Limburg and Luxemburg were with¬ 
drawn. The reign of Leopold was for 
Belgium a prosperous period of thirty- 
four years. Leopold II succeeded his 
father in 1865, and was succeeded by his 
son, Albert I, in Dec., 1909. In recent 
years the chief feature of Belgian politics 
has been a keen struggle between the 
clerical and the liberal party. Till 1878 
the clerical party maintained the upper 
hand, but to a large extent by corruption 
at the elections. In 1877 a bill was 
passed to put down corruption, and to 
increase the number of town deputies to 
the chamber of representatives; and at 
the next elections, in June, 1878, the 
Liberals gained a majority, which they 
lost in 1884. In 1885, on the constitu¬ 
tion by the Congress of Berlin of the 
Congo Free State, in Central Africa, in 
which Leopold II. had shown an active 
interest, he was invited to become its 
sovereign. Opposition to his rule arising, 
due in part to reports of inhuman 
treatment of the natives, he trans¬ 
ferred his sovereignty to the state in 


1908. 

Bplp’rarlf* (bel-grad'), capital of Ser- 
ue via> on the right bank of 

the Danube in the angle formed by the 
junction of the Save with that river, con¬ 
sists of the citadel or upper town, on a 
rock 100 feet high ; and the lower town, 
which partly surrounds it. Of late years 
buildings of the European type have mul¬ 
tiplied, and the older ones suffered to 
fall into decay. The chief are the royal 
and episcopal palaces, the government 
buildings, the cathedral, barracks, ba¬ 
zars, national theater, and various edu¬ 
cational institutions. It manufactures 
carpets, silk stuffs, hardware, cutlery, 
and saddlery; and carries on an active 
trade. Being the key of Hungary, it was 
long an object of fierce contention be¬ 
tween the Austrians and the Turks, re¬ 
maining, however, for the most part in 
the hands of the Turks until its evacua¬ 
tion by them in 1867. Since the treaty 
of Berlin (July, 1878) it has been the 
capital of an independent state. Pop. 
69,097. 


Belial (bel'yal), a word which by the 
translators of the English Bible 
is often treated as a proper name, as in 
the expressions ‘son of Belial,’ ‘man of 
Belial.’ In the Old Testament, however, 
it ought not to be taken as a proper 
name, but it should be translated ‘ wick¬ 
edness ’ or ‘ worthlessness.’ To the later 
Jews Belial seems to have become what 
Pluto was to the Greeks, the name of 
the ruler of the infernal regions; and in 
2 Cor., vi., 15, it seems to be used as a 



Belisarius 


Bell 


name of Satan, as the personification of 
all that is bad. 

'Rplicovinc(be-li-sa'ri-us; in Slavonic 
JDClls>dliu& BeU . tzar , ‘White Prince’), 

the general to whom the Emperor Justin¬ 
ian chiefly owed the splendor of his 
reign ; born in Illyria about 505 a.d. He 
served in the body-guard of the emperor, 
soon after obtained the chief command 
of an army on the Persian frontiers, and 
in 530 gained a victory over a superior 
Persian army. The next year, however, 
he lost a battle, and was recalled. In 
the year 532 he checked the disorders 
in Contantinople arising from the Green 
and Blue factions; and was then sent 
with 15,000 men to Africa to recover the 
territories occupied by the Vandals. 
He took Carthage and led Gelimer, the 
Vandal king, in triumph through Con¬ 
stantinople. Dissensions having arisen 
in the Ostrogothic kingdom, he was sent 
to Italy, and though ill supplied with 
money and troops, stormed Naples, held 
Rome for a year, took Ravenna, and led 
captive Vitiges, the Gothic king. He 
rendered honorable service in later cam¬ 
paigns in Italy and against the Bul¬ 
garians, but was accused of conspiracy 
and flung into prison. He afterwards 
seems to hav^ recovered his property and 
dignities, the story of Tzetzes (a twelfth- 
century monk), that Belisarius wan¬ 
dered about as a blind beggar, being 
probably an invention. He died in 565. 
The only weaknesses in the character of 
Belisarius appear in connection with his 
profligate wife Antonina, an associate of 
the Empress Theodora. 

"Rpli 7 p (be-lez'), the capital and only 
trading port of British Hon¬ 
duras, situated at the mouth of the 
southern arm of the river Belize. Ex¬ 
ports : chiefly mahogany, rosewood, log¬ 
wood, cedar, cocoa-nuts, and sugar. Pop. 
about 5800. 


"Rpl V-nsm (beTnap), Jeremy, an Ameri- 
uciAiidp can author, born in 1744; 

minister at Dover, New Hampshire, and 
afterwards at Boston. Died in 1798. 
Besides his History of New Hampshire, 
he published two volume* of American 
biography, and a number of political, 
religious, and literary tracts. 

Bell a h°H° w : somewhat cup-shaped, 
9 ounding instrument of metal. The 
metal from which bells are usually made 
(by founding) is an alloy, called bell- 
metal, commonly composed of eighty 
parts of copper and twenty of tin. The 
proportion of tin varies, however, from 
one-third to one-fifth of the weight of 
the copper, according to the sound re¬ 
quired, the size of the bell, and the im¬ 
pulse to be given. The clearness and 


richness of the tone depend upon the 
metal used, the perfection of its casting, 
and also upon its shape; it having been 
shown by a number of experiments that 
the well-known shape with a thick lip is 
the best adapted to give a perfect sound. 
The depth of the tone of a bell increases 
in proportion to its size. A bell is 
divided into the body or barrel, the ear 
or cannon, and the clapper or tongue . 
The lip or sound-bow is that part where 
the bell is struck by the clapper. 

It is uncertain whether the jangling 
instruments used by the Egyptians and 
Israelites can be correctly described as 
bells; but it is certain that bells of a 
considerable size were in early use in 
China and Japan, and that the Greeks 
and Romans used them for various 
purposes. They are said to have been 
first introduced into Christian churches 
about 400 a.d. by Paulinus, Bishop of 
Nola, in Campania (whence campana 
and nola as old names of bells), although 
their adoption on a wide scale does not 
become apparent until after the year 550, 
when they were introduced into France. 
Benedict Biscop, abbot of Wearmouth, 
seems to have imported bells from Italy 
to England in 680, but their use in Ire¬ 
land and Scotland is probably of earlier 
date. The oldest of those existing in 
Great Britain and Ireland, such as the 
‘ bell of St. Patrick’s will ’ and St. 
Ninian’s bell, are quadrangular and 
made of thin iron plates hammered 
and riveted together. Until the thir¬ 
teenth century they were of com¬ 
paratively small size, but after the cast¬ 
ing of the Jacqueline of Paris (6% tons) 
in 1400 their weight rapidly increased. 
Among the more famous bells are the 
bell of Cologne, 11 tons, 1448; of Dant- 
zic, 6 tons, 1453; of Halberstadt, 7%, 
1457; of Rouen, 16, 1501; of Breslau, 
11, 1507; of Lucerne, 7 %, 1636; of Ox¬ 
ford, 71 / 2 , 1680; of Paris, 12%, 1680; 
of Bruges, 10%, 1680; of Vienna 17%, 
1711; of Moscow (the monarch of all 
bells), 193, 1736; and various others of 
later date. The United States possesses 
one of great historical interest and highly 
revered, the Independence Bell of the old 
Philadelphia State House, the most fa¬ 
mous of American historical relics. 

Besides their use in churches, bells are 
employed for various purposes, the most 
common use being to summon attendants 
or domestics in private houses, hotels, etc. 
Bells for this purpose are of small size 
and may be held in the hand and rung, 
but most commonly are rung by means 
of wires stretched from the various 
apartments to the place where the bells 
are hung. Bells rung by electricity are 



Bell 


Bell 


now common in residences, hotels and 
other establishments. 

Bells, as the term is used on shipboard, 
are the strokes of the ship’s bell that pro¬ 
claim the hours. Eight bells, the highest 
number, are rung at noon and every 
fourth hour afterwards, i. e. at 4, 8, 12 
o’clock, and so on. The intermediary 
periods are indicated thus: 12:30, one 
bell; 1 o’clock, 2 bells ; 1: 30, 3 bells, etc., 
until the eight bells announce 4 o’clock, 
when the series recommences, 4: 30, one 
bell; 5 o’clock, two bells, etc. The even 
numbers of strokes thus always announce 
hours, the odd numbers half-hours. 

Bell Alexander Graham, inventor of 
c 9 the telephone, was born at Edin¬ 
burgh in 1847. He was educated at Edin¬ 
burgh and in Germany, and settled in 
Canada in 1870. In 1872 he went to the 
United States and introduced for the 
education of deaf-mutes the system of 
visible speech contrived by his father 
Alexander Melville Bell. He became pro¬ 
fessor of vocal physiology in Boston Uni¬ 
versity, and exhibited his telephone, de¬ 
signed and partly constructed some years 
before, at the Philadelphia exhibition in 
1870. Its remarkable success brought 
him great wealth. He was also the 
inventor of the photophone and the 
tetrahedral kite. 

Bell Alexander Melville, father of 
9 the above, was born at Edinburgh 
in 1819. He was a distinguished teacher 
of elocution in that city ; in 1865 removed 
to London to act as a lecturer in Uni¬ 
versity College; and in 1870 went to 
Ganada and became connected with 
Queen’s College, Kingston. He is inven¬ 
tor of the system of ‘ visible speech,’ 
in which all the possible articulations of 
the human voice have corresponding 
characters designed to represent the re¬ 
spective positions of the vocal organs. 
This system has been successfully em¬ 
ployed in teaching the deaf and dumb to 
speak. Besides writing on this subject 
he has written on elocution, stenography, 
etc. He died Aug. 7, 1905. 

Bell. Andrew, the author of the mutual 
9 instruction or the ‘Madras’ 
system of education, was born at St. 
Andrews, Scotland, in 1753; died in 
England in 1832. He took orders in the 
Church of England, and in 1789 went to 
India, where he became chaplain at Fort 
St. George, Madras, and manager of the 
institution for the education of the or¬ 
phan children of European soldiers, 
hailing to retain the services of prop¬ 
erly qualified ushers, he resorted to the 
expedient of employing the scholars in 
mutual instruction; and after his return 
to Britain published a treatise on the 


monitorial or Madras system of educa¬ 
tion. Joseph Lancaster, a dissenter, be¬ 
gan to work on the system, and a con¬ 
siderable amount of friction and rivalry 
ensued between the dissenters and the 
church party. Dr. Bell lived long enough 
to witness the introduction of his system 
into 12,973 national schools, educating 
900,000 English children, and to know 
that it was employed extensively in al¬ 
most every other civilized country. In 
later life he became a prebendary of West¬ 
minster, and was master of Sherborn 
Hospital, Durham. At his death he left 
$600,000 for the erection and mainten¬ 
ance of schools on his favorite system, 
$300,000 of which was set apart for his 
native town. 

Bell ^ IR Charles, anatomist and sur- 
9 geon, was born at Edinburgh in 
1774, and studied anatomy there under 
the superintendence of his brother John 
(see below). In 1804 he went to Lon¬ 
don, and soon distinguished himself as a 
lecturer on anatomy and surgery. In 
1814 he was appointed surgeon to the 
Middlesex Hospital, and in 1821 he com¬ 
municated to the Royal Society a paper 
on the nervous system, containing among 
other things the important discovery that 
the nerve-filaments of sensation are dis¬ 
tinct from those of motion. It at once 
attracted general attention and estab¬ 
lished his reputation. In 1824 he ac¬ 
cepted the chair of anatomy and surgery 
to the London College of Surgeons, and 
in 1836 that of surgery in the Univer¬ 
sity of Edinburgh. He died suddenly in 
1842. He was the author of many pro¬ 
fessional works of high repute on an¬ 
atomy and surgery, and of the Bridge- 
water Treatise, The Hand: its Mech¬ 
anism and Vital Endowments as evincing 
Design. He received the honor of knight¬ 
hood in 1831. 

Bell George Joseph, brother of Sir 
9 Charles and John Bell (see both 
names), an eminent lawyer, was born in 
Edinburgh in 1770, died 1843. He is the 
author of several standard law-books, the 
most important of which is The Prin¬ 
ciples of the Law of Scotland, which has 
gone through several editions. 

Bell. Henry, the first successful applier 
, of steam to the purposes of navi¬ 
gation in Europe, was born in Linlith¬ 
gowshire 1767; died at Helensburgh 1830. 
He was apprenticed as a millwright, and 
afterwards served under several en¬ 
gineers, including Rennie. He settled in 
Glasgow in 1790, and subsequently in 
Helensburgh. In 1798 he turned his at¬ 
tention specially to the steam-boat, the 
practicability of steam navigation having 
been already demonstrated. In 1812 the 



Bell 


Belladonna Lily 


Comet, a small thirty-ton vessel built at 
Glasgow under Bell’s directions, and 
driven by a three-liorse-power engine 
made by himself, commenced to ply be¬ 
tween Glasgow and Greenock, and con¬ 
tinued to run till she was wrecked in 
1820. This was the beginning of steam 
navigation in Europe. It has been as¬ 
serted that Fulton, who started a 
steamer on the Hudson in 1807, obtained 
his ideas from Bell in the previous year. 
Bell is also credited with the invention 
of the ‘ discharging machine ’ used by 
calico-printers. A monument has been 
erected to his memory at Dunglass Point 
on the Clyde. 

Bell Henry Glassford, poet and mis- 
9 cellaneous writer; born in Glas¬ 
gow 1803, died 1874. He was educated 
at the Glasgow High School and Edin¬ 
burgh University. Author of several 
volumes of poetry, a Life of Mary, Queen 
of Scots, etc. 

"RpII James, a Scottish geographical 
9 writer, born 1769, died 1833. His 
first literary work was on the Glasgow 
Geography, a popular work of the period, 
which was in 1822, chiefly by the labors 
of Mr. Bell, extended to five vols. It 
formed the basis of his principal work, 
A System of Popular and Scientific 
Geography published at Glasgow in six 
vols. His Gazetteer of England and 
Wales was in the course of publication 
at the time of his death. 

TJpll John, a distinguished surgeon, 
9 elder brother of Sir Charles Bell, 
born at Edinburgh 1763; died at Rome 
1820. After completing his professional 
education he traveled for a short time in 
Russia and the N of Europe; and on his 
return to Edinburgh began to deliver 
extramural lectures on surgery and mid¬ 
wifery. These lectures, which he de¬ 
livered between the years 1786 and 1796, 
were very highly esteemed, and speedily 
brought him into an extensive practice as 
a consulting and operating surgeon. 

Bell doHN > an American statesman, 
9 born near Nashville, Tennessee, in 
1797; died at Cumberland in 1869. Ad¬ 
mitted to the bar in 1816, he was elected 
to Congress in 1827 and re-elected for six 
later terms. He left the Democratic and 
joined the Whig party about 1833, and 
was elected speaker of the House by that 
party in T834, made Secretary of War 
under President Harrison, and served as 
United States Senator from Tennessee 
1847-59; he was nominated for Presi¬ 
dent by the Constitutional Union party 
in 1860, receiving the electoral votes of 
three states. 

■Rpll John, an English sculptor, born 
•° CAA > at Norfolk in 1811. His best- 


known works are the Eagle Slayer, Una 
and the Lion, The Maid of Saragossa, 
Imogen , Andromeda, statues of Lord 
Falkland, Sir Robert Walpole, Newton, 
Cromwell, et al., and the Wellington 
Memorial in Guildhall. He is also one 
of the sculptors of the Guards’ Monu¬ 
ment in Waterloo Place, London, and the 
Prince Consort Memorial in Hyde Park. 
He is the author of several professional 
treatises, and of a drama, Ivan; a Day 
and a Night in Russia. He died in 
1895. 

Bell -^ 0BERT > journalist and miscel- 
9 laneous writer, born at Cork in 
1S00; died at London in 1867. He settled 
in London in 1828, edited the Atlas for 
several years, and afterwards the Monthly 
Chronicle, Mirror, and Home News. He 
compiled several volumes of Lardner’s 
Cabinet Cyclopedia; but he is best 
known by his annotated edition of the 
British Poets, the first volume of which 
appeared in 1854, and which was carried 
through twenty-nine volumes. He also 
wrote several plays and novels. 

"Rpll Thomas, an English zoologist, 
9 born at Poole, Dorset, in 1792; 
died at Selborne, Hampshire, in 1880. 
He became a member of the Royal College 
of Surgeons in 1815, and soon secured a 
large practice as a dentist. In 1832 he 
was appointed professor of zoology in 
King’s College, London. His best-known 
separate works are his histories of British 
quadrupeds, British reptiles, and Brit¬ 
ish stalk-eyed Crustacea, published in 
Van Voorst’s series. In 1877 he pub¬ 
lished an excellent edition of White's 
Natural History of Selborne. 

■Rpllo Stefano Della, an engraver, 
c ^ born at Florence in 1610; died 
in 1664. In 1642 he went to Paris, where 
he was employed by Cardinal Richelieu. 
He returned to Florence and became the 
teacher in drawing of Cosmo de Medici. 
It is said that he engraved 1400 plates. 

Belladonna (hel-a-don'a), a Euro- 
ueiiduonnd pean plant> Atr6pa 

belladonna, or deadly nightshade, nat. or¬ 
der Solanaceae. It is native in Britain. 
All parts of the plant are poisonous, and 
the incautious eating of the berries has 
often produced death. The inspissated 
juice is commonly known by the name of 
extract of belladonna. It is narcotic and 
poisonous, but is of great value in medi¬ 
cine, especially as a heart and lung 
stimulant and in nervous ailments. It 
has the property of causing the pupil of 
the eye to dilate. 

Belladonna Lily, ®° call . ed 0B ac * 

J 9 count of its 
beauty, a species of Amaryllis (A. 
belladonna) with delicate blushing 



Bellaire 


Bellefonte 


flowers clustered at the top of a leafless 
flowering stem. It is a native of the 
Cape of Good Hope and of the West 
Indies. 

"Rpllairp (bel-ar'), a city of Belmont 
JJCilctll c C0 } 0hio> on the Qhio 

River, 5 miles below Wheeling. Coal, 

limestone and fire-clay abound in its 

vicinity, and it has iron and steel, glass, 

enamel, farming implements, and other 

manufactures. Pop. 12,946. 

Up'll a mv (bel'a-mi), Edward, novel- 
Jjciidiiiy wag born at Chicopee 

Falls, Massachusetts, in 1850; died in 
1898. His Socialistic novel. Looking 
Backward, had an extraordinary sale. 
It was followed by Equality, and he 
wrote several other works. 

"Rpllam-v (bel'a-mi), Jacobus, a 
-uciicuiiy Flemish poet, was born 

at Flushing in the year 1757, and died 
in 1786. A volume of sentimental and 
anacreontic poems was published in 1782, 
and was followed in 1785 by a collection 
of his patriotic songs under the title 
Vaderlandsche Gezangen, which secured 
him a place among the first poets of his 
nation. He ranks as one of the restorers 
of modern Dutch poetry. 

Bell-animalcule. See Vorticella. 

Bellarmino (bel-lar-me'no), Roberto, 
or Bellarmine, Robert, 
a cardinal and celebrated controversialist 
of the Roman Church, born at Monte 
Pulciano in Tuscany in 1542; died at 
Rome in 1621. He was ordained a priest 
in 1569 by Jansenius, Bishop of Ghent, 
and placed in the theological chair of the 
University of Louvain. He was made 
a cardinal on account of his learning, by 
Clement VIII, and in 1602 created Arch¬ 
bishop of Capua. Paul V recalled him 
to Rome, on which he resigned his arch¬ 
bishopric without retaining any pension 
on it as he might have done. Bellarmino, 
whose life was a model of Christian ascet¬ 
icism, is one of the greatest theologians, 
particularly in polemics, that the Church 
of Rome has ever produced. He had the 
double merit with the court of Rome of 
supporting her temporal power and spirit¬ 
ual supremacy to the utmost, and of 
strenuously opposing the reformers. The 
talent he displayed in the latter contro¬ 
versy called forth all the similar ability 
on the Protestant side; and for a number 
of years no eminent divine among the 
reformers failed to make his arguments a 
particular subject of refutation. His 
principal work is Disputationes de Con- 
troversiis Fidei adversus hujus Temporis 
Hcereticos. 

Bellarv (bel-a'ri), a town in India, 
* presidency of Madras, capital 


of a district of the same name, 280 miles 
northwest of Madras; a military station, 
with a fort crowning a lofty rock, and 
other fortifications. Pop. 58,247.— The 
district was ceded to the British in 1800. 
Area, 5714 square miles. 

TOpllav (bel-a), Joachim du, a dis- 
c J tinguished French poet, 
known as the French Ovid; born about 
1524; died in 1560. He joined Ronsard, 
Daurat, Jodelle, Belleau, Baif, and de 
Tisard in forming the ‘ Pleiad,’ a society 
the object of which was to bring the 
French language on a level with the 
classical tongues. Bellay’s first contribu¬ 
tion was La Defense et Illustration de la 
Langue Frangaise. Ilis chief publica¬ 
tions in verse are Recueil de Poesie; a 
collection of love-sonnets called UOlive; 
Les Antiquitez de Rome; Les Regrets; 
and Les Jeux Rustiques. In 1555 he be¬ 
came canon of NStre Dame, and a short 
time before his death he was made Arch¬ 
bishop of Bordeaux. Spenser translated 
some of his sonnets into English. 
"Rpll-lvirrl the name given to the 
cii un Arapunga alba, a South 
American passerine bird, so named from 
its sonorous bell-like notes; and also to 
the Myzantha melanophrys of Australia, 
a bird of the family Meliphagidse (honey- 
suckers), whose notes also resemble the 
sound of a bell. 

Bell, Book, and Candle, ^ 0 d° e le ““ 

excommunication used in the Roman 
Catholic Church. After the sentence was 
read, the book was closed, a lighted candle 
thrown to the ground, and a bell tolled 
as for one dead. 

"R pi 1-prank in machinery, a rect- 
“°eil cranK > angular lever by which 
the direction of motion is changed through 
an angle of 90°, and by which its velocity 
ratio and range may be altered at pleas¬ 
ure by making the arms of different 
lengths. It is much employed in machin¬ 
ery, and is named from its being the 
form of crank employed in changing the 
direction of the bell-wires of house-bells. 
BelleaU (bel-o), Remy, a French 
poet of the Renaissance, and 
member of the Pleiad (see Bellay) ; born 
1528; died 1577. Chief work : Commen¬ 
taries on Ronsard’s Amours. 

Beliefontaine <bel ' to 1 n t “ n >- a <*ty, 

capital of Logan Co., 
Ohio, 50 miles N. w. of Columbus. Has 
bridge, car, locomotive, and other manu¬ 
factures, including locomotives and car¬ 
riages. Pop. 8238. 

Bellefonte, borough capital of Cen- 
’ tre Co., Pennsylvania, 26 
miles s. w. of Lockhaven. It contains a 
noted spring and is a summer resort. It 



Belle-Isle 


Bellini 


has large and varied manufactures and 
a good trade. Coal is mined in its vicin¬ 
ity. Pop. 4145. 

'Rp11p-T<j1p (bel-el), or Belle-Isle-en- 
-DC11C MeR) a French island in 

Bay of Biscay, dep. of Morbihan, 8 m. s. 
of Quiberon Point; length 11 m., greatest 
breadth 6 m. Pop. about 10,000, largely 
engaged in the pilchard fishing. The 
capital is Le Palais on the n. e. coast. 

"RpIIp Tqlp (bel-Il'), a rocky island, 
laic 9 m long< at the eastern 

entrance to the Straits of Belle Isle, the 
channel, 15 m. wide, between Newfound¬ 
land and the coast of Labrador. Steam¬ 
ers from Glasgow and Liverpool to Que¬ 
bec round the north of Ireland commonly 
go by this channel in summer as being the 
shortest route. 

'RpIIpicIp (bel-el), Charles, Louis 
jjci C1S c Auguste Fouquet, Count 
de, Marshal of France, born in 1684; died 
in 1761. He distinguished himself during 
the war of the Spanish succession, after¬ 
wards in Spain and Germany, where, 
under Berwick, he took Treves and Trar- 
bach, and had a distinguished share in the 
siege of Phillipsburg. The cession of 
Lorraine to France was principally his 
work. He was created marshal of France 
about 1740; commanded in Germany 
against the Imperialists, took Prague by 
assault; but the king of Prussia having 
made a separate peace, he was compelled 
to retreat, which he performed with ad¬ 
mirable skill. In 1744 he was taken pris¬ 
oner by the English, but was soon ex¬ 
changed. In 1748 he was made a duke 
and peer of France, and the department 
of war was committed to his charge. 

Berienden, John. See Ballentyne. 

"RpI^Iph^pti William, a Scottish 
lenuen, writer? distinguished for 

the elegance of his Latin style, born be¬ 
tween 1550 and 1560, probably at Lass- 
wade ; died between 1631 and 1633. He 
was professor of belles-lettres at Paris. 
"Rpllprip (bel-er'ik), the astringent 
fruit of Terminalia beller- 
ica. See Myrobolan. 

Belleroplion 0>el-ler'o-fon), or Hip- 
r ponous, in Greek 
mythology, a hero who, having accident¬ 
ally killed his brother, fled to Prcetus, 
King of Argos, whose wife, Antsea, fell 
in love with him. Being slighted, she 
instigated her husband to send him to her 
father, Iobates, King of Lycia, with a 
letter urging him to put to death the 
insulter of his daughter. That king, not 
wishing to do so directly, imposed on him 
the dangerous task of conquering the 
Chimaera, which Bellerophon, mounted on 
Pegasus, a gift from Athena, overpowered. 


Iobates afterwards gave him his daughter 
in marriage, and shared his kingdom with 
him. He attempted to soar to heaven on 
the winged horse Pegasus, but fell to the 
earth, where he wandered about blind, till 
he died. 

Beller'onhon a lar & e genus of fossil 

Jjcilcl UJJ11UI1, nautiloid shells> con _ 

sisting of only one chamber, like the liv¬ 
ing Argonaut. They occur in the Silu¬ 
rian, Devonian, and Carboniferous 
strata. 

Belles-lettres (bel-let-r) polite or 
elegant literature: a 
word of somewhat vague signification. 
Rhetoric, poetry, fiction, history, and 
criticism, with the languages in which the 
standard works in these departments are 
written, are generally understood to come 
under the head of belles-lettres. 

"Rpllpvillp (bel'vil), a city and rail- 
■Dcucvme road center> ca pi ta i of gt. 

Clair Co., Illinois, with important manu¬ 
factures of iron and steel, etc., large 
smelting works, and with rich mines of 
bituminous coal in its vicinity. The 
population, largely German, numbers 
21 , 122 . 

"RaIIa-wiIIa a manufacturing town, 
-D cue vine, Essex Co., New Jersey, on 

the Passaic River and the Erie Railroad. 
It has large chemical works, brass and 
copper works, etc. Pop. 9891. 
’RpIIpmiIIp a town of Canada, prov. 
JDCllCV e, Ontario, capital of Hast¬ 
ings Co., on the Bay of Quinte, at the 
mouth of the Moira, with flourishing 
trade and manufactures. It has a Metho¬ 
dist Episcopal University.Pop.(1911)9850. 

Bpllpvnp (bel'vu), a city of Camp- 
nenevue bell Co> Kentucky, adja¬ 
cent to Newport, has manufactures of 
wagons, paper-boxes, etc. Pop. 6683. 

"Rpllpimp a P ost village of Huron 
ncnevuc, and g andusky C os., Ohio, 

45 miles s. e. of Toledo. Has manufac¬ 
tures of paints, cultivators and flour. 
Pop. 5209. 

"Rpll-fl mxrov a common name for the 
-Beil nower, species of Campanula , 

from the shape of the flower, which re¬ 
sembles a bell. 

Bellingham, hatco. 

Bellingham Bay, 125 miles n. of Seattle. 
Has very large fish-canning interests, a 
trade in hops, coal, lumber, etc., and many 
large manufactories. Pop. 24,298. 
Bellini (bel-e'ne), Jacopo, and his 
two sons, Gentile and Gio¬ 
vanni, the founders of the Venetian 
school of painting. The father excelled in 
portraits, but very little of his work is 
extant. He died about 1470. Gentile was 
born in 1421, and in 1479 went to Con- 



Bellini 


Bell Rock 


stantinople, Mohammed II having sent to 
Venice for a skillful painter; died at 
Venice in 1501. Giovanni was born about 
1424, and died about 1516. He contrib¬ 
uted much to make oil-painting popular, 
and has left many noteworthy pictures. 
Titian and Giorgione were among his 
pupils. 

Bellini (bel-e'ne), Vincenzo, a cele- 
in. brated composer, born at Cata¬ 
nia, Sicily in 1802; died in 1835. He 
was educated at Naples under Zingarelli, 
commenced writing operas before he was 
twenty, and composed for the principal 
musical establishments in Europe. His 
most celebrated works are I Montecclii 
e Capuleti (1829) ; La Sonnambula 
(1831) ; Norma, his best and most pop¬ 
ular opera; and I Puritani (1834). 

Bellinynnn (bel-in-zo'na), a town of 
■Deiillizuild, Switzerlandi capital of 

the canton Ticino; charmingly situated 
on the left bank of the Ticino about 5 
miles from its embouchure in the n. end 
of Lago Maggiore. It occupies a position 
of great military importance. Pop. about 
3500. 

■Rollie the genus to which the daisy 
.DeillS, belongs . 

Beilis. See Belle-Isle. 

"Rpll'mann Karl Mickel, the most 
jjcii iiicuiii, original among the Swed¬ 
ish lyric poets, was born in 1740; died 
in 1795. His songs, in which love and 
liquor are common themes, are sung over 
the whole country, and ‘ Bellmann ’ so¬ 
cieties hold an annual festival in his 
honor. 

Bell-metal. See Bell. 


Bellona (bel-ld'na), the goddess of 
war among the Romans, 
often confounded with Minerva. She 
was the sister of Mars, or, according to 
some, his daughter or his wife. She is 
described by the poets as armed with a 
bloody scourge, her hair disheveled, and 
a torch in her hand. 

Bellot Joseph Ren£, a 

French naval officer, born at 
Paris in 1826; drowned in 1853. In 1851 
he joined the expedition to the Polar re¬ 
gions in search of Sir John Franklin, and 
took part in several explorations. He 

was drowned in an attempt to carry de¬ 
spatches to Sir Edward Belcher over the 
ice. His diary was published in 1855. 
BelloWS (bel'los), an instrument or 

machine for producing a 

strong current of air, and principally used 
for blowing fires, either in private "dwell¬ 
ings or in forges, furnaces, mines, etc. 
It is so formed as, by being dilated and 
contracted, to inhale air by an orifice 


which is opened and closed with a valve, 

and to propel it through a tube upon the 

fire. It is an ancient contrivance, being 

known in Egypt, India, and China many 

ages ago, while forms of it are used 

among savage tribes in Africa. 

Tfollnwe Henry Whitney, an Uni- 
uciiuwa, tarian divine> born at Bog _ 

ton in 1814; died in 1882. Graduated at 
Harvard in 1832, afterwards studied the¬ 
ology, and became pastor of a New York 
church in 1838. He was an able and elo¬ 
quent pulpit speaker and lecturer, was 
the principal founder of the Christian 
Inquirer, and author of On the Treat¬ 
ment of Social Diseases, etc. Organized 
and was president of the United States 
Sanitary Commission. 

Bellows Falls, Windham * 

mont, on the Connecticut River. Has ex¬ 
tensive manufactures of paper, farming 
implements, etc. Pop. 4883. 

Bellows-fish, Z- aamthopterytfous 

’ fash of the genus Cen- 
triscus ( C. scolopax) ; called also the 
trumpet-fish or sea-snipe. It is not 
uncommon in the Mediterranean, but rare 
in the British seas. It is 4 or 5 inches 



Bellows-fish (Centriscus scolopax). 

long, and has an oblong oval body and a 
tubular elongated snout, which is adapted 
for drawing from among sea-weed and 
mud the minute Crustacea on which it 
feeds. 

Bellov (bel-wa), Pierre Laurent 
J Buirette de, a French dram¬ 
atist, born 1727; died 1775. His principal 
plays are Zelmire, a tragedy; Le Siege 
de Calais, which was immensely popular; 
Gaston et Bayard, which admitted him 
into the French Academy; and Pierre le 
Cruel. He was one of the fifst to intro¬ 
duce native heroes upon the stage. 

Bell Rock, or Inch Cape > a danger- 
’ ous reef surmounted by a 
lighthouse, situated in the German Ocean 
about 12 miles from Arbroath, nearly 
opposite the mouth of the river Tay. It 
is said that in former ages the monks 
of Aberbrothock caused a bell to be fixed 
on this reef, which was rung by the 






Bells 


Belton 


waves, and warned the mariners of this 
highly dangerous place. Tradition also 
says that the bell was wantonly cut 
away by a pirate, and that a year after 
he perished on the rock himself with 
ship and plunder. Southey has a well- 
known poem on this subject. The light¬ 
house was erected in 1808-11 by Robert 
Stevenson from Rennie’s plan at a cost 
of upwards of $300,000. It rises to a 
height of 120 feet; has a revolving light 
showing alternately red and white every 
minute, and visible for upwards of 15 
miles. It also contains two bells which 
are rung during thick weather. The reef 
is partly uncovered at ebb-tides. 

Bells, on shipboard. See Bell. 


Bpllnnn (bel-lo'no), a city of North- 
xiciiunu ern it a i y> capital of a prov¬ 
ince of the same name, on the Piave, 48 
m. N. of Venice. Has an old cathedral, 
a handsome theater, etc.; and manufac¬ 
tures of silk, straw-plait, leather, etc. 
Pop. 7014. The province has an area of 
1271 sq. miles. 

"Rplnp (be'lol), William, an English 
jjciuc clergyman and miscellaneous 
writer, born 1756; died 1817. He was 
educated at Cambridge, and in 1803 be¬ 
came keeper of the printed books in the 
British Museum, a post he did not retain. 
His chief publications are Anecdotes of 
Literature and Scarce Books. 

’Rplm’t (be-loit'), a city of Rock Co., 
ajciuii; Wisconsin, 69 miles southwest 
of Milwaukee, the seat of Beloit College. 
It has manufactures of agricultural imple¬ 
ments, paper, pumps, engines, and other 
articles. Pop. 15,125. 

■Rplnmarmv (bel'o-man-si), a kind 
UClUIIIcUloy of divination b y arr ows, 

practised by the ancient Scythians and 
other nations. One of the numerous 
modes was as follows:—A number of 
arrows, being marked, were put into a 
bag or quiver, and drawn out at random ; 
and the marks or words on the arrow 
drawn determined what was to happen. 
See Ezek., xxi, 21. 

Beloil (be-lop), Piebre, French nat- 
u uralist, born 1517; murdered 
by robbers 1564. His chief work was 
a Natural History of Birds , 1555. 

Beloo'chistan. See Baluchistan. 


Belpasso ( bel-pAs'so) > a town of Sicily, 
P on the southern slope of 

Mount Etna, in the province of Catania, 
and 8 miles from the town of that name. 
Pop. about 9640. 


Belner (bel'per), a town, England, 
P Derbyshire, in a valley, on the 
Derwent, 7 miles N. of Derby, with large 
cotton-mills, foundries, etc., and in the 


neighborhood numerous collieries. Pop. 
(1911) 11,643. 

Belshazzar (M-shaz’ar), the last of 

the Babylonian lungs, 
who reigned conjointly with his father 
Nabonadius. He perished b.c. 538, during 
the successful storming of Babylon by 
Cyrus. This event is recorded in the 
book of Daniel; but it is difficult to bring 
the particulars there given into harmony 
with the cuneiform inscriptions as inter¬ 
preted to-day. 

Belt Belting, a flexible endless band, 
^ or its material, used to trans¬ 


mit motion or power from one wheel, 
roller, or pulley to another, and common 



Malleable Iron Link-Belt, 
in various kinds of machinery. Driving 
belts are usually made of leather or India 
rubber, or some woven material, but 
ropes and chains are also used for the 
same purpose. 

■Dplf The Great and Little, two 
straits connecting the Baltic with 
the Cattegat, the former between the is¬ 
lands of Zealand and Funen, about 18 
miles in average width ; the latter between 
Funen and the coast of Schleswig, at its 
narrowest part not more than a mile in 
width. 

■RaH-qua (bel'tan ; a Celtic name mean- 
-DCIlcUie ing <fire of Bel ») a sort 0 f 

festival formerly observed in Ireland and 
Scotland, and still kept up in a fashion 
in some remote parts. It is celebrated in 
Scotland on the first day of May (o. s.), 
usually by kindling fires on the hills and 
eminences. In early times it was com¬ 
pulsory on all to have their domestic fires 
extinguished before the Beltane fires were 
lighted, and it was customary to rekindle 
the former from the embers of the latter. 
This custom no doubt derived its origin 
from the worship of the suu. 

TOpItrm (bel'tun), the capital of Bell 
County, Texas, 55 miles 
northeast of Austin, the seat of the 
Baylor Female College and Belton 
Academy. Has manufactures of cotton, 
cotton seed oil, etc. Pop. 4161. 





Belucliistan 


Ben 


Belu'chistan. See Baluchistan. 

Belli P*a (be-lo'ga) ( Beluga arctica or 
Delphinapterus leucas), a 
kind of whale or dolphin, the white whale 
or white fish, found in the northern seas 
of both hemispheres. It is from 12 to 18 
feet in length, and is pursued for its oil 
(classed as ‘porpoise oil’) and skin. In 
swimming the animal bends its tail 
under its body like a lobster, and thrusts 
itself along with the rapidity of an arrow. 
A variety of sturgeon ( Acipenser huso) 
found in the Caspian and Black Sea is 
also called beluga. 

'Rp'lnc the same as Bel or Baal, a 
-uc ( 3 ^^^ 0 f ^e ancient Baby¬ 
lonians. See Babylonia, Babel. 

'RpWpd at*p (bel've-der), in Italian 
.Deivcucie arch the U pp ermos t story 

of a building open to the air, at least on 
one side, and frequently on all, for the 
purpose of obtaining a view of the coun¬ 
try and for enjoying cool air. A portion 
of the Vatican in which are several im¬ 
portant statues has this name. 

"Rplviderp (bel-veder'), a city of II- 
.Dciviucie linois> capital of Boone 

Co., 43 miles e. of Freeport; has manu¬ 
factures of butter, cheese, boilers, etc. 
Pop. 7253. 

BpI 7 nrn (bel-zo'nl), Giovanni Bat¬ 
tista (John Baptist), an en¬ 
terprising traveler, was born at Padua in 
1778, and died near Benin 1823. In 1803 
he emigrated to England, where, being 
endowed with an almost gigantic figure 
and commensurate strength, he for a 
time gained his living as an athlete. In 
1815 he visited Egypt, where he made a 
hydraulic machine for Mehemet Ali. He 
then devoted himself to the exploration of 
the antiquities of the country, being sup¬ 
plied with funds by Mr. Salt, the British 
consul-general. He succeeded in trans¬ 
porting the bust of Memnon (Rameses 
II) from Thebes to Alexandria, whence 
it was sent to the British Museum ; ex¬ 
plored the great temple of Rameses II at 
Abu-Simbel; opened the tomb of Seti I, 
from which he obtained the splendid 
alabaster sarcophagus bought by Sir John 
Soane for $10,000; and also succeeded in 
opening the second (King Chephren’s) of 
the pyramids of Ghizeh. He afterwards 
visited the coasts of the Red Sea, the city 
of Berenice, Lake Moeris, the Lesser 
Oasis, etc. The narrative of his dis¬ 
coveries and excavations in Egypt and 
Nubia was received with general approba¬ 
tion. He died during a projected journey 
to Timbuctoo. 

Bem J° SEPH > a Polish general, born 
9 at Tarnow, in Galicia, in 1795; 
died at Aleppo in 1850. His first service 


was in the French expedition against 
Russia in 1812. He served in the Polish 
army in the revolution of 1830, after 
which he resided in Paris. In 1848 he 
joined the Hungarian army, and in the 
following year obtained several successes 
against the Austrians and Russians; but 
after the defeat at Temosvar he retired 
into Turkey, where he embraced Moham¬ 
medanism and was made a pasha. 

Bpmhppidfp (bem-bes'i-de), a family 
-DCiiiueoiUcC Qf wasp _ like hymenop- 

terous insects with stings, mostly natives 
of warm countries, and known also as 
sand-wasps. The female excavates cells 
in the sand, in which she deposits, to¬ 
gether with her eggs, various larvae or 
perfect insects stung into insensibility, 
as support for her progeny when hatched. 
They are very active, fond of the nectar 
of flowers, and delight in sunshine. Bem- 
bex is the typical genus of this family. 
Bem'bo P IETR0 > a celebrated Italian 
9 scholar, born at Venice in 
1470; died in 1547. At Venice he became 
one of a famous society of scholars which 
had been established in the house of the 
printer Aldus Manutius. In 1512 he be¬ 
came secretary to Leo X, after whose 
death he retired to Padua. He was next 
appointed historiographer to the Republic 
of Venice, and librarian of the library 
of St. Mark. Pope Paul III conferred 
on him, in 1539, the hat of a cardinal, 
and soon after the bishoprics of Gubbio 
and Bergamo. The most important of his 
works are: History of Venice from 1487 
to 1513, written both in Latin and 
Italian ; Le Prose, dialogues in which the 
rules of the Italian language are laid 
down; Gli Asolani, dialogues on the 
nature of love; and Le Rime, a collection 
of sonnets and canzonets. 

Bem'bridge Beds, tsif&iv* 

sion of the Upper Eocene strata, princi¬ 
pally developed at Bembridge in the Isle 
of Wight, consisting of marls and clays 
resting on a compact, pale-yellow or 
cream-colored limestone, called Bembridge 
limestone. Their most distinctive feature 
is the mammalian remains of the Palaeo- 
therium and Anoplotherium. 

Bemidil (be-mid'je), a city, capital bf 
Beltrami Co., Minnesota, 
about 180 miles w. n. w. of Duluth. It 
has lumber interests. Pop. 5099. 

Beil (Hebrew, ‘son’), a prepositive 
syllable signifying in composition 
‘ son of,’ found in many Jewish names, 
as Bendavid, Benasser, etc.— Beni the 
plural, occurs in several modern names, 
and in the names of many Arabian tribes. 
Ben, a _ Gaelic word signifying moun- 
’ tain, prefixed to the names of 



Ben 


Benedict 


many mountains in Scotland north of the 
Firths of Clyde and Forth; as, Ben 
Nevis, Ben MacDhui, etc. 

Beil ^ IL 0F > ^ ie ex P resse( 3 °il of the 

, ben-nut, the seed of Moringa 
pterygosperma, the ben or horse-radish 
tree of India. The oil is inodorous, does 
not become rancid for many years, and is 
used by perfumers and watchmakers. 

Benares < b . e ' na ' rez ; >“ Sanskrit, ra- 

ranasi), a town in Hindu¬ 
stan, Northwest Provinces, administrative 
headquarters of a district and division of 
the same name, on the left bank of the 
Ganges, from which it rises like an am¬ 
phitheater, presenting a splendid pano¬ 
rama of temples, mosques, palaces, and 
other buildings with their domes, mina¬ 
rets, etc. Fine ghauts lead down to the 
river. It is one of the most sacred places 
of pilgrimage in all India, being the head¬ 
quarters of the .Hindu religion. The 
principal temple' is dedicated to Siva, 
whose sacred symbol it contains. It is 
also the seat of government and other 
colleges, and of the missions of various 
societies. Benares carries on a large 
trade in the produce of the district and in 
English goods, and manufactures silks, 
shawls, embroidered cloth, jewelry, etc. 
The population, including the neighbor¬ 
ing cantonments at Sikraul (Secrole), 
is estimated at 203,100. 

"Rpnhpp'nla an island of Scotland in 

xseiiDec uia, the 0uter Hebrides> be _ 

tween North and South Uist, about 8 
miles in diameter, low, flat, and infertile, 
with many lakelets and inlets of the sea. 
"Rpn'how John, an English admiral, 
’ born in Shrewsbury about 
1650, died 1702. For his skill and valor 
in an action with a Barbary pirate he 
was promoted by James II to the com¬ 
mand of a ship of war. William III 
employed him in protecting the English 
trade in the Channel, which he did with 
great effect, and he was soon promoted to 
the rank of rear-admiral. In 1701 he 
sailed to the West Indies with a small 
fleet, and in August of the following year 
he fell in with the French fleet under 
Du Casse, and in the heat of the action a 
chain-shot carried away one of his legs. 
At this critical instant, being most dis¬ 
gracefully abandoned by several of the 
captains under his command, the whole 
fleet effected its escape. Benbow, on his 
return to Jamaica, brought the delin¬ 
quents to a court-martial, by which two 
of them were condemned to be shot. He 
himself died of his wounds. 

Bench the dais or elevate<3 part 

^ 9 a court-room where the judges, 
sit. Hence the persons who sit as judges. 
The King's or Queen's Bench, in Eng¬ 



land, was formerly a court in which 
originally the sovereign sat in person, and 
which accompanied his household. The 
bench of bishops, or Episcopal bench, is 
a collective designation of the bishops 
who have seats in the House of Lords. 
"Rpnpnnlpn (ben-ko'len; Dutch, Ben- 
DCilLUUlcn icoelen), a seaport of Su¬ 
matra, on the s. w. coast. The English 
settled here in 1685, and retained the place 
and its connected territory till 1825, 
when they were ceded to the Dutch in ex¬ 
change for the settlements on the Malay 
Peninsula; since then Bencoolen has 
greatly declined. Pop. 6870. 

Bend * n heraldry, one of the nine hon- 
9 orable ordinaries, containing a 
third part of the field when 
charged and a fifth when 
plain, made by two lines 
drawn diagonally across the 
shield from the dexter chief 
to the sinister base point. 

The bend sinister differs 
only by crossing in the op¬ 
posite direction, diagonally Bend, 
from the sinister chief to the dexter base. 
It indicates illegitimacy. 

Bender (ben'der), a town and for¬ 
tress of Russia, in Bessarabia, 
on the Dniester. Its commerce is impor¬ 
tant, and it carries on some branches of 
manufacture. Pop. 31,851. 

"Rpndpr- Ahhpcj a seaport of South- 

±>enaer iiDDas, ern Persia opposite 

the island of Ormuz, with an extensive 
trade; formerly a place of great commer¬ 
cial importance. Pop. about 6000. 
■Rpnprlplr (ba'ne-dek), Ludwig von, 
jjciicucis. Austrian general, born 1804, 

died 1881. Fought against the Italians 
in 1848, and afterwards against the Hun¬ 
garian patriots. He distinguished himself 
at Solferino in the campaign of 1859; and 
in the war with Prussia in 1866 he com¬ 
manded the Austrian army till after his 
defeat at Sadowa, when he was super¬ 
seded. 

‘Rp-nprilPltf* (ben-e-dis'i-te; L. ‘bless 
-oeneuioite ye>)> the cant i c i e in the 

Book of Common Prayer in the morning 
service, also called the Song of the Three 
Holy Children : ‘ O, all ye works of the 
Lord, bless ye the Lord.’ It is as old as 
the time of St. Chrysostom. 

Benedict (ben'e-aikt), th « na “ e , °J 

fourteen popes, the first of 
the name succeeding to the papal chair 
on the death of John III in 574. The 
first deserving of notice is Benedict IX, 
who succeeded John XIX in 1033, being 
placed on the papal throne as a boy of 
twelve years. His licentiousness caused 
him to be ignominiously expelled by the 
citizens, who elected Sylvester III. Six 






Benedict 


Benedictines 


months after he regained the ascendency, 
and excommunicated Sylvester; but find¬ 
ing the general detestation too strong to 
permit him to resume his chair, sold it 
to John Gratianus, who assumed the title 
of Gregory VI. There was thus a trio of 
popes, and the emperor, Henry III, to 
put an end to the scandal, deposed all 
the three. He died in 1054.— Benedict 
XIII, a learned and well-disposed man, 
originally Cardinal Orsini and Arch¬ 
bishop of Benevento, became pope in 
1724. He bestowed his confidence on 
Cardinal Coscia, who was unworthy of it, 
and abused it in gratifying his avarice. 
He died in 1730, and was succeeded by 
Clement XII.— Benedict XIV, Prospero 
Lambertini, born at Bologna in 1675, 
died 1758, a man of superior talents, pas¬ 
sionately fond of learning, of historical 
researches, and monuments of art. Bene¬ 
dict XIII made him, in 1727, bishop of 
Ancona; in 1728 cardinal, and in 1732 
Archbishop of Bologna. In every station 
he fulfilled his duties with the most con¬ 
scientious zeal. He succeeded Clement 
XII in 1740, and showed himself a 
liberal patron of literature and science. 
He was the author of several esteemed 
religious works. 

"RpnpHipt St., the founder of the first 
JJCilCU.ll/ tj religious order in the West; 

born at Nursia, in the province of Umbria, 
Italy, a.d. 480, died 543. In early youth 
he renounced the world and passed some 
years in solitude, acquiring a great repu¬ 
tation for sanctity. Being chosen head 
of a monastery, his strictness proved too 
great for the monks, and he was forced to 
leave. The rule for monks, which he 
afterwards drew up, was first introduced 
into the monastery on Monte Cassino, in 
the neighborhood of Naples, founded by 
him. His Regula Monachorum, in which 
he aimed, among other things, at repress¬ 
ing the irregular lives of the wandering 
monks, gradually became the rule of all 
the western monks. Under his rule the 
monks, in addition to the work of God 
(as he called prayer and the reading of 
religious writings), were employed in 
manual labor, in the instruction of the 
young, and in copying manuscripts, thus 
preserving many literary remains of an¬ 
tiquity. See Benedictines. 

■Ppyip/lipt Sir Julius, pianist and 
9 composer, born at Stuttgart 
1804, died at London 1885. He took up 
his residence in England in 1835, and 
was knighted in 1871. Principal works: 
the operas of The Gypsy's Warning , Un¬ 
dine, St. Cecilia, Lily of Killarney, and 
Graziella. 

Benedict Biscop, , an . Anglo-Saxon 

monk, born of a 


noble Northumbrian family in 628 or 
629; died at Wearmouth monastery in 
690. In 674 he founded a monastery at 
the mouth of the Wear, and endowed it 
with numerous books, pictures, and relics 
obtained by him on various journeys 
which he made to Rome. He founded, in 
682. a second monastery at Jarrow, de¬ 
pendent on that of Wearmouth. His 
great pupil the ‘ Venerable Bede,’ who 
was a monk in the monastery of Jarrow, 
and who wrote his life, was undoubtedly 
much indebted to the collections made by 
Benedict for the learning he acquired. 
"Benediptine (ben-e-dik'tin), a liqueur 

-Deneaicime prepared by the Bene _ 

dictine monks of the abbey of Fecamp, 
in Normandy, consisting of spirit (fine 
brandy) containing an infusion of the 
juices of plants, and said to possess 
digestive, antispasmodic, and other vir¬ 
tues, and to have prophylactic efficacy in 
epidemics. Made in the same way since 
1510. 

Benedictines, ™ embers tbe 

9 famous and widely- 
spread of all the orders of monks, founded 
at Monte Cassino, about half-way be¬ 
tween Rome and Naples, in 529, by St. 
Benedict. No religious order has been so 
remarkable for extent, wealth and men 
of note and learning as the Benedictines. 
Among the branches of the order the chief 
were the Cluniacs, founded in 910 at 
Clugny in Burgundy; the Cistercians, 
founded in 1098, and reformed by St. 
Bernard in 1116; and the Carthusians 



Benedictine Monk. 

from the Chartreuse, founded by Bruno 
about 1080. The order was probably in¬ 
troduced into England about 600 by St. 
Augustine of Canterbury, and a great 
many abbeys, and all the cathedral pri¬ 
ories of England, save Carlisle, belonged 





Benefice 


Bengal 


to it. In Britain the Benedictines were 
called Blackfriars, from the color of their 
habit, which consisted of a loose black 
gown with large wide sleeves, and a cowl 
on the head ending in a point. The 
Benedictines produced many valuable 
literary works. The fraternity of St. 
Maur, founded in 1618, had in the begin¬ 
ning of the eighteenth century 180 abbeys 
and priories in France, and acquired by 
means of its learned members, such as 
Mabillon, Montfaucon, and Martfcne, 
merited distinction. They published the 
celebrated chronological work UArt de 
Verifier les Dates , and edited many an¬ 
cient authors. 


Benefice ft") 


Benefit of Clergy 


an ecclesiastical 
, a church endowed 
with a revenue for the maintenance of 
divine service. Vicarages, rectories, per¬ 
petual curacies, and chaplaincies are 
termed benefices, in contradistinction to 
dignities, such as bishoprics, etc. 

was a privilege 
by which for¬ 
merly in England the clergy accused of 
capital offenses were exempted from the 
jurisdiction of the lay tribunals, and left 
to be dealt with by their bishop. Though 
originally it was intended to apply only 
to the clergy or clerks, later every one 
who could read was considered to be a 
clerk, and the result of pleading ‘ his 
clergy ’ was tantamount to acquittal. A 
layman could only receive the benefit of 
clergy once, however, but he was not al¬ 
lowed to go without being branded on the 
thumb, a punishment which later might 
be commuted for whipping, imprisonment, 
or transportation. Abolished in 1827. 

Benefit Societies, f f e 


Friendly Societies. 

■RptiaVp (ben'e-ke), Friedrich Ed- 
jjciicjxc WARD> a German philosophi¬ 
cal writer, born in 1798, died in 1854. 
He began lecturing at Berlin, but his 
lectures were at first interdicted on ac¬ 
count of their supposed materialistic 
tendency, and he removed to Gottingen. 
He returned to Berlin in 1827, and after 
the death of Hegel, whose philosophical 
views he 'opposed, he was appointed ex¬ 
traordinary professor of philosophy. Ilis 
more important works are Psychological 
Sketches , Text-hook of Psychology as a 
Natural Science , System of Logic, 
Treatise on Education, Groundwork of a 
Physic of Ethics, written in direct 
antagonism to Kant’s Metaphysic of 


Ethics , etc. 

T?PUPVPntn (ben-a-ven'to), a city of 
X>eneveillU Southern Italy, the see of 

an archbishop, in a prov. of same name, 
on a hill between the rivers Sabato and 


Calore, occupying the site of the ancient 
Beneventum, and largely built of its 
ruins. Few cities have so many remains 
of antiquity, the most perfect being a 
magnificent triumphal arch of Trajan, 
built in 114. The cathedral is a building 
of the twelfth century in the Lombard- 
Saracenic style. Pop. 17,603. The prov. 
has an area of 818 sq. miles, and a pop. 
1901, of 256,504. 

■Rpnfpv (ben'fl), Theodore, a German 
y Sanskrit scholar, born in 
1809; died in 1881; professor of Sanskrit 
and comparative philology at Gottingen. 
Among his works were a Sanskrit Ghres- 
tomathy, Vollstandige Grammatik der 
Sanskritsprache, Practical Grammar of 
the Sanskrit Language , Sanskrit-English 
Dictionary, etc. 


Bengal 


(ben-gal'), a former presidency 
of British India which in¬ 


cluded the whole of British India except 
what was under the governors of Madras 
and Bombay. By the name Bengal is 
now usually understood the lieutenant- 
governorship of Bengal, the largest in 
population, resources, and net revenue of 
the local governments of British India. 
It lies between 19° 18' and 28° 15' n. lat. 
and between 82° and 97° e. Ion., and in¬ 
cludes the provinces of Behar, Chutia 
Nagpur, Orissa, and Bengal proper, the 
last comprising the united deltas of the 
Ganges and Brahmaputra, and stretching 
north to Sikkim, west to Behar, east to 
Assam, and south to the Bay of Bengal. 
Area 151,185 sq. miles; population 
78,448,735. Bengal comprises also a 
number of feudatory native states of 
38,650 sq. miles in area. Pop. about 
3,750,000. 

Bengal consists of plains, there being 
few remarkable elevations, though it is 
surrounded with lofty mountains. It is 
intersected in all directions by rivers, 
mostly tributaries of its two great rivers 
the Ganges and Brahmaputra, which 
annually, in June and July, inundate a 
large part of the region. These annual in¬ 
undations render the soil extremely fer¬ 
tile, but in those tracts where this ad¬ 
vantage is not enjoyed the soil is thin, 
seldom exceeding a few inches in depth. 
The Sundarbans or Sunderbunds (from 
being covered with the sunder tree), that 
portion of the country through which the 
numerous branches of the Ganges seek 
the sea, about 150 miles from e. to w. 
and about 160 from n. to s., is traversed 
in all directions by water-courses, and in¬ 
terspersed with numerous sheets of stag¬ 
nant water. The country is subject to 
great extremes of heat, which, added to 
the humidity of its surface, renders it 
generally unhealthy to Europeans. The 



Bengal 


Bengazi 


seasons are distinguished by the terms 
hot (March to June), rainy (June to 
October), and cold (the remainder of 
the year). The most unhealthy period 
is the latter part of the rainy season. 
The heaviest rainfall occurs in Eastern 
Bengal, the annual average amounting to 
over 100 inches, an amount greatly ex¬ 
ceeded in certain localities. Besides rice 
and other grains, which form along with 
fruits the principal food of the popula¬ 
tion, there may be noted among the agri¬ 
cultural products indigo, opium, cane- 
sugar, tobacco, betel, cotton, and the jute 
and sunn plants. Tea is now extensively 
grown in some places, notably in Dar¬ 
jeeling district and Chittagong. Cinchona 
is cultivated in Darjeeling and Sikkim. 
The forests cover 12,000 sq. miles, the 
principal forest trees being the s&l on the 
Himalaya slopes, s&l and teak in Orissa. 
Wild animals are most numerous in the 
Sundarbans and Orissa, snakes being re¬ 
markably abundant in the latter district. 
They include the elephant, rhinoceros, 
tiger, panther, antelopes, deer, buffalo, 
wild oxen, apes, and poisonous serpents 
which cause great havoc. The principal 
minerals are coal, iron, and salt. Coal 
is worked at Raniganj, in Bardw£n dis¬ 
trict, where the seams are about 8 feet in 
thickness, and iron in the. district of 
Bfrbhfim, in the same division. Salt is 
obtained from the maritime districts of 
Orissa. The principal manufactures are 
cotton piece-goods of various descriptions, 
jute fabrics, blanketing, and silks. Mus¬ 
lins of the most beautiful and delicate 
texture were formerly made at Dacca, 
but the manufacture is almost extinct. 
Sericulture is carried on more largely 
in Bengal than in any other part of 
India, and silk weaving is a leading in¬ 
dustry in many of the districts. The 
commerce, both internal and external, is 
very large. The chief exports are opium, 
jute, indigo, oil-seeds, tea, hides and skins, 
and rice; the chief import is cotton piece- 
goods. The foreign trade is chiefly with 
Britain, China, the Straits Settlements, 
France, the United States, and Ceylon. 
Internal communication is rendered easy 
by a very complete railway and canal 
system, while the boat trade on the rivers 
is, for magnitude and variety, quite 
unique in India. The people of Bengal 
are mainly of Hindu race except in the 
valleys of Chittagong, -where they are 
chiefly Burmese. Over 20,000,000 are 
Mohammedans in religion, more than 
double this profess Hinduism. The 
dialects spoken are Bengali in Bengal 
proper, Hindi in Patna division, and 
Uriya in Orissa. The first rudiments of 
education are usually given in the pri¬ 


mary schools that have been developed out 
of the native schools, and are now con¬ 
nected with government. There are also 
a number of secondary and superior 
schools established by government, includ¬ 
ing eight government colleges. The high¬ 
est educational institution is the Calcutta 
University, the chief function of which 
is to examine and confer degrees. The 
population of Bengal beyond the capital, 
Calcutta, and its suburbs, is largely rural. 
Bengal Proper, or the province of Bengal, 
the eastern part of the above region, has 
nearly half the total area and more than 
half the population, its area being 70,184 
sq. miles: pop. 41,259,982. 

The first of the East India Company’s 
settlements in Bengal were made early 
in the seventeenth century. The rise of 
Calcutta dates from the end of the same 
century. The greater part of Bengal 
came into the hands of the East India 
Company in consequence of Clive’s vic¬ 
tory at Plassy in 1757, and was for¬ 
mally ceded to the Company by the Nabob 
of Bengal in 1765. Chittagong had pre¬ 
viously been ceded by the same prince, 
but its government under British adminis¬ 
tration was not organized till 1824. 
Orissa came into British hands in 1803. 
In 1858 the country passed to the crown, 
and since then the history of Bengal has 
been, on the whole, one of steady and 
peaceful progress. 

"Rpyirral Bay of, that portion of the 
® 9 Indian Ocean which lies be¬ 

tween Hindustan and Farther India, or 
Burmah, Siam, and Malacca, and may be 
regarded as extending south to Ceylon 
and Sumatra. It receives the Ganges, 
Brahmaputra, and Irrawaddy. Calcutta. 
Rangoon, and Madras are the most im¬ 
portant towns on or near its coasts. 
Bengali (ben-gg/le), one of the ver- 

& nacular languages of India, 

spoken by about 50,000,000 people in 
Bengal, akin to Sanskrit and written in 
characters that are evidently modified 
from the Devanagari (Sanskrit), Its use 
as a literary language began in the four¬ 
teenth century.with poetry. Large num¬ 
bers of Bengali books are now published, 
as also newspapers. A large number of 
words are borrowed from Sanskrit litera¬ 
ture. 


Bengal Light, » fte k “ d us £ 

naling by night at sea, producing a 
steady, vivid blue-colored flame. 
Ben-srazi (ben-ga'ze), a town of N. 
n i c e cv .1 Afr , ica ’ in Barca, on the 
<juit ot Sidra, the most important sea¬ 
port. or the country, though the harbor 
admits only small vessels. Pop. about 

lOjOUU. 



Bengel 


Benne 


Bengel ( ben s'l)» Johann Albrecht, 
o a German theologian, born in 
1687; died in 1752. He rendered good 
service by his criticism of the text of the 
New Testament, and his Gnomon Novi 
Testamenti has passed through many edi¬ 
tions, and is still of value. 

BpH2TLela (ben-ga'l&), a district be- 
& longing to the Portuguese 


on the w. coast of South Africa ; bounded 
N. by Loanda, s. by Mossamedes, and 
w. by the Atlantic; area, perhaps 150,- 
000 sq. m. The country is mountainous 
in the interior, and thickly intersected by 
rivers and streams. Its vegetation is 
luxuriant, including every description of 
tropical produce, and animal life is equally 
abundant. Copper, silver, iron, salt, 
sulphur, petroleum, and other minerals 
are found. The natives are mostly rude 
and barbarous. The capital, also called 
Benguela, or San Felipe de Benguela, is 
situated on the coast, on a bay of the 
Atlantic, in a charming but very un¬ 
healthy valley. It was founded by the 
Portuguese in 1617, and was formerly an 
important center of the slave trade, but 
has now only a spasmodic trade in ivory, 
wax, gum copal, etc. Pop. about 2,000. 
'Rprii (ba'ne), a river of South America, 
JJC1AA state of Bolivia. It rises in the 
eastern slopes of the Andes, and - after a 
course of 900 miles joins the Mamore to 
form the Madeira, which flows into the 
Amazon near Serpa. 

T^enieavln (ba-ne-kar-lo'), a Spanish 
•DeilU/dliu tQwn Qn the Mediterra¬ 
nean, province of Castellon; the place 
of export of well-known red wines sent to 
Bordeaux to be mixed with clarets, or to 
England to be manufactured into port. 
Pop. 7251. 

Bprii-TTa^flll (ba'ne-has'san), a vil- 
X>em XLdbbcUl lage of Middle Egypt, 

on the east bank of the Nile, remarkable 
for the grottoes or catacombs in the neigh¬ 
borhood, supposed to have formed a ne¬ 
cropolis for the chief families of a city, 
Hermopoiis, on the opposite bank, which 
exhibits interesting paintings etc. 

Beni-Israel (M'nMs'ra-el) a race in 
the west of India (the 
Konkan sea-board, Bombay, etc.) who 
keep a tradition of Jewish origin, and 
whose religion is a modified Judaism; 
supposed to be a remnant of the ten 
tribes. 


■Rpnin (ben-en'), a negro country and 
former kingdom of West 
Africa, on the Bight of Benin, extending 
along the coast on both sides of the Benin 
River, west of the lower Niger, and to 
some distance inland. The chief town is 
Benin (pop. 15,000), situated on the river 
Benin, one of the outlets of the Niger, 


about 50 miles from the ocean. The 
country, which gradually rises as it re¬ 
cedes from the coast, is well wooded and 
watered, and rich in vegetable produc¬ 
tions. Cotton is indigenous, and woven 
into cloth by the women, and sugar-cane, 
rice, yams, etc., are grown. The religion 
is fetichism, and human sacrifices are 
numerous. There is a considerable trade 
in palm-oil. The name Benin formerly 
extended over a much larger territory. 

"Rpnin Bight of, part of the Gulf of 
AJcnin, Guinea , w Africa> whic h ex¬ 
tends into the land between the mouth of 
the river Volta and that of the Nun. 

-Suef (hen'e-swef), the capital 
of a province of the same 
name in Middle Egypt, situated on the 
left bank of the Nile, and having the 
chief trade of the Fayum Valley. It has 
cotton-mills and alabaster quarries, and 
an important annual market. Pop. 
18,229. 

"Rom’+ipv (ba-net'ya), or Benatu'ra, 

-jcmi/ici a stone f ont or vase f or 

containing holy water, usually placed in 
a niche in the chief porch or entrance of 
a Roman Catholic church sometimes in 
one of the pillars close to the door, into 
which the members of the congregation on 
entering dip the fingers of the right hand, 
and then cross themselves. 



Benjamin. Same as Benzoin. 

Beniamin (ben'ja-min), Judah P., 
jDeiijdiiiin < the brains of the Con _ 

federacy,’ born at St. Croix, W. I., in 

1811; died at Paris, 1884; studied law in 

New Orleans; elected U. S. Senator for 

Louisiana in 1852; became a member in 

1861 of the cabinet of the Confederate 

States government as Secretary of War 

and in 1862 as Secretary of State. He 

withdrew to London after the war and 

engaged there in legal practice. 

Benlomond (ben-16'mond), a moun- 
.dciiiuiiiuiiu. tain of Scotland in Stir . 

lingshire, on the e. shore of Loch Lomond, 
rising to a height of 3192 feet and 
giving a magnificent prospect of the vale 
of Stirlingshire, the Lothians, the Clyde, 
Ayrshire, Isle of Man, hills of Antrim, 
etc. 


Bpri-Mar-TThni or Ben-Muich- 

.oen mac unui, D H v x ( mik . d o'i), 

the second highest mountain in Scotland, 
situated in the southwest of Aberdeen¬ 
shire, on the borders of Banffshire, form¬ 
ing one of a cluster of lofty mountains, 
among which are Brae-riacli, Cairntoul, 
and Cairngorm. Height, 4296 feet. 
Beiine Oil (ben'e) a valuable oil ex¬ 
pressed from the seeds of 
Sesdmum orientate and 8. indicum, much 
cultivated in India, Egypt, etc., and used 



Bennet 


Bennett 


for similar purposes with olive-oil. Also 
called sesamum oil , gingelly oil and 
teel oil. 

Bennet (ben'net). See Avens. 

'Rpyi'viptt James Gordon, an Amer- 
■dcii licit, kan j ournalist? born iri 

Banffshire, Scotland, in 1795, and edu¬ 
cated at Aberdeen. He emigrated to Hal¬ 
ifax, Nova Scotia, in 1819 as a teacher, 
and went thence to Boston as a proof¬ 
reader. In 1822 he went to New York, 
and, after being connected with various 
papers, started the New York Herald in 


1835. By his enterprise and not very 
scrupulous conduct of the journal it 
speedily became an enormous success, its 
yearly profit at his death being estimated 
at from a half to three quarters of a mil¬ 
lion dollars. He died June 1, 1872. 
"R Ar ,riA+f James Gordon, Jr., son of 

JJCI1I1C l L, the aboye? tbom in lg41 . 

proprietor of New York Herald; at his 
father’s death he projected Stanley'sex- 
pedition to Africa in search of Living¬ 
stone—also projected the Jeanette polar 
expedition and was associated with Mac- 
kay in the Commercial Cable Company. 

































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JUN 17 



1912 













































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